Wealth frontier
12/09/2008
France might not seem the most obvious choice for wealth managers to be targeting in the current economic slowdown – after all, the local economy is all but in recession.
Nevertheless, that’s exactly where most of the expansion activity of a number of big wealth managers has taken place in recent months.
Take for example moves by the Swiss private bank Mirabaud, which indicated this week that it plans to grow its business in the country and has hired a seasoned local private banker from Banque Privée Edmund de Rothschild to lead the charge.
Credit Suisse has also entered the fray, announced this week a series of senior hires to prop up its efforts in France.
Even troubled UBS likes Europe’s third biggest economy, announcing this week that it has managed to attract €1bn of net new money from its French wealth business in the first half of the year.
More impressive given that most other countries in Europe for the Swiss bank recorded money outflows during the same period.
Regional wealth appears to be a common theme running through a number of private banking strategies in France.
