Swiss private banking group Julius Baer is committed to growing its Italian asset and wealth management subsidiary Kairos.
This comes after it completed a strategic review of the Milan-headquartered business.
The bank did not have definite answers about its strategy but said, “a detailed implementation plan” will be produced in the next few months “to realise the further growth potential of Kairos and additional revenue synergies”.
Yves Robert-Charrue, head of region Europe at Julius Baer and chairman of Kairos, said: “Our review has clearly shown that Julius Baer is the best owner for Kairos, which offers significant potential for us to build out our position in the attractive Italian wealth management market.”
It also plans to hire people in Italy with the aim to bring the number of Kairos employees to 200 from 150.
Stronger bond
The aim is to achieve “a closer alliance between Julius Baer’s and Kairos’ wealth management businesses serving clients domiciled in Italy”.
This will include giving Kairos access to Julius Baer’s wealth management products and services.
Between the start of the strategic partnership in June 2013 and 30 June 2019, Kairos’ assets under management more than doubled to over €9bn (£8.18bn, $9.87bn).
Italian opportunity
There has been a bit of activity in the Italian wealth space recently.
In July, Deutsche Bank recruited 13 wealth professionals to join its wealth management arm in Italy; while in June, it signed a partnership deal with global investment manager MFS to bolster its retail offering in the European country.
Several weeks before that, MFS agreed a similar deal with Italian bank CheBanca.
