Julius Baer Continues To Transfer Over Business Units Bought From BoA Merrill Lynch

Tom Burroughes

2 April 2013

Julius Baer said today it has transferred four business units into its full control as part of the purchase in 2012 of the Bank of America Merrill Lynch non-US wealth management unit.

The entities are in Uruguay, Chile, Monaco and Luxembourg. The financial advisors and client relationships of the concerned entities were transferred on 1 April 2013, whereas the client assets will be transferred in a staggered manner from Merrill Lynch to the Julius Baer platforms, in line with applicable regulations in the respective markets.

The other major businesses to transfer, expected to occur during the remainder of the year, are in Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK.

“This represents another major milestone in the integration process which was launched with the principal closing of the transaction and the related acquisition of Merrill Lynch Bank (Suisse) on 1 February 2013,” Zurich-listed Julius Baer said today in a statement.

Boris Collardi, the bank’s chief executive, said: “With the addition of Uruguay, where we are now one of the biggest players, and Chile, we have expanded our business massively in the fast-growing market of Latin America. In Monaco we strongly increase our presence, adding further momentum to our local business development. Moreover, we enter the market in the important financial centre Luxembourg with a substantial client base, which also opens up new business opportunities.”

Julius Baer said rebranding of the transferred entities will be completed as soon as possible once authorities in the various jurisdictions have approved the name changes.

The acquisition of the BoA Merrill Lynch business was one of the largest recent M&A moves in wealth management. More recently, Morgan Stanley agreed to sell part of its non-US wealth business to Credit Suisse, ending months of speculation that the US firm was looking to spin off some of this business; Credit Suisse has, meanwhile, sold its Clariden Leu (Europe) business to Falcon Private Bank.

According to recent research from Scorpio, the consultancy, over $1.1 trillion of high net worth assets changed hands between early 2008 and the middle of 2012 in such transactions, while the average price paid, as a percentage of AuM, fell during that period.