KBL boss Juerg Zeltner is recruiting a former top executive of Credit Suisse to build up the Luxembourg wealth manager's Swiss business, finews.asia has learned.

KBL European Private Bankers CEO Juerg Zeltner doesn't have a Swiss business yet, but he already has someone to run it: the Luxembourg wealth manager is hiring Dagmar Kamber Borens to build up its Swiss activities, two people familiar with her hire told finews.asia. Kamber Borens, who left Credit Suisse last autumn, couldn't immediately be reached. KBL didn't comment.

The move is emblematic of Zeltner's ambitions with KBL, an 72 billion euros ($80 billion) wealth manager made up of a network of private banks in Europe, including Germany's Merck Finck and Brown Shipley in the U.K. Zeltner, once tipped to run UBS, is poised to purchase Bank am Bellevue, a tiny Zurich wealth manager, as finews.com exclusively reported seven weeks ago.

Stellar Credentials

The hire of Kamber Borens is a huge coup for KBL: she is a well-respected veteran of UBS, where she worked closely with financial chiefs John Cryan and Tom Naratil. She defected to Credit Suisse's Swiss bank in 2016, where she became operating chief during a period when CEO Tidjane Thiam wanted to float a stake in the unit (the plan was blown off one year later).

Kamber Borens, who has a Ph.D. in law and made managing director at UBS one month before the bank was forced to take a $60 billion government bailout in 2008, left Credit Suisse in October in a management shake-up. She eschewed the CEO job at the cantonal bank in her native Basel earlier this year.

Return via Bank am Bellevue

The arrival of Kamber Borens hinges on the Bellevue deal panning out: finews.com reported last week that Swiss regulatory approval, as well as discussions over Bellevue employees, are still pending.

KBL had a Swiss private bank until four years ago when it sold the unit to hometown rival Banque Internationale a Luxembourg for an undisclosed price. Zeltner told finews.ch (in German) in May he planned to expand KBL rapidly in Europe and beyond. Qatar's ruling al-Thani family owns the wealth management group as a private investment, and Zeltner has also taken what he termed a «significant» stake.