Swiss Private Banks: Which Ones Thrived, Which Ones Faltered?
5. Vontobel
Finally, over 100 billion francs in assets under management in private banking! With this figure published on February 7, Vontobel still has the smallest private banking division among the institutions under review.
However, the figures presented by Co-CEO Georg Schubiger, responsible for «Private Clients», are rather encouraging overall.
With net new money of 4.6 billion francs and a group profit (including «Institutional Clients») of 226 million francs, the bank managed to appease the markets. Unlike UBS and Julius Baer, the institution was not penalized by the stock exchange.
The cost/income ratio improved markedly from 79.2 percent to 74.7 percent compared to 2023, though it still remains above Vontobel’s communicated medium-term target of 72 percent. However, a closer look at the annual report does raise some questions: from which markets is this net new money coming? The «Advised Client Assets» evolved last year as follows:
- Switzerland (home market): from 109.3 to 120.2 billion francs (up 10 percent)
- Germany: from 24.4 to 21.2 billion francs (down 13 percent)
- UK: from 21.2 to 23.6 billion francs (up 11 percent)
- Italy: from 13.0 to 14.7 billion (up 13 percent)
- North America: from 15.9 to 16.8 billion (up 6 percent)
- APAC (Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and Japan), Latin America and MEA (Middle East and Africa): from 26.5 to 21.4 (down 19 percent)
- Other markets: from 21.6 to 38.7 billion francs (up 80 percent)
Based on these figures, it appears that a large part of the net new money was generated in «other markets». This raises the question: which markets are these? Especially since the individually listed regions comprehensively cover the key private banking destinations.
What sets Vontobel apart from the other institutions is that the bank is not a «pure player» in private banking; it also operates an institutional business of comparable scale, led by Co-CEO Christel Rendu de Lint. In 2024, this segment’s net new money was markedly lower than that of private banking.
Thus, the bank stands on two pillars—a structure that has traditionally made it challenging for Vontobel to keep pace with the other major private banks in the private client segment.
Somewhat erratic acquisitions in the past—most notably the Eastern Europe business of Notenstein La Roche in 2017—have reinforced this impression. Likewise, the acquisition of the small IHAG Private Bank, announced last year and completed in early January—which managed a significant portion of the former owner, the Anda Bührle family’s assets—is not considered a «game changer» in this context.
