1. Pictet
The Geneva-based private bank towers above the rest. The new Senior Partner Marc Pictet, who took over the reins from Renaud de Planta last June, now leads an institution that exudes an almost aristocratic aura.
Its private banking approach is extremely purist, and around one-third of its assets under management come from institutional business.
The 2024 annual results – whose key figures the bank published on February 11 – show no major surprises: profit increased by 15 percent to 665 million francs.
This reflects both the generally strong market development and the significant impact of fines incurred in the previous year in the USA—which cost the bank over 100 million francs.
The high profit is contrasted by a relatively modest net new money performance in 2024. In absolute terms, however, Pictet’s 11 billion francs in net new money still outpaces all peers except UBS (which, in terms of size, plays in its own league) and Julius Baer.
In Geneva, one can relax: the «Bears» would need to generate an extra 3 billion francs in net new money over 98 years – as they did in 2024 – to overtake Pictet in assets under management.
Pictet’s comparatively high cost/income ratio (77 percent in 2023, with no figures published yet for 2024) must also be seen in context: since profit is distributed among relatively few partners, Pictet is, in a sense, in a league of its own here.
