Julius Baer Shares Slump as Net New Money Figure Disappoints

(Bloomberg) — Julius Baer Group Ltd. saw client inflows slow for the first four months of the year, with the bank’s continued de-risking efforts weighing on the Swiss wealth manager’s growth aspirations.

Client inflows slowed to 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.8 billion), from 4.2 billion francs in the period a year ago. The bank said that client inflows had been impacted by ongoing work to de-risk the balance sheet, the conflict in the Middle East, and client deleveraging.

A number of analysts described the numbers as “disappointing,” and shares were down as much as 9.25% in early trading in Zurich.

The bank is in an ongoing clean-up exercise after real-estate losses under previous management, and remains under a formal review by Swiss regulator Finma. The bank is unable to carry out share buybacks until the review is completed, expected to be at some point this year.

“The application of our revised risk and compliance framework is leading to more de-risking than in a normal year,” Chief Executive Officer Stefan Bollinger said in a call with analysts. “As of today we don’t have an update on the status of Finma.”

Switzerland and Western Europe were contributors to the inflows and a majority had come from new relationship managers, Chief Financial Officer Evie Kostakis said. Other than in the Middle East, Kostakis said the bank was hiring across the board and especially focused on beefing up in its home market. At the end of April Baer had 1,257 relationship managers.

Despite net new money slowing and expected to be lower this year compared to last year, the bank said it was confident about reaching its target of 4–5% by 2028. The firm had “many initiatives” in place, and the bank was doubling down on capabilities such as discretionary mandates and structured products, according to Bollinger. Baer was selectively expanding other activities in alternatives as well he said.

Julius Baer said it expects to post profit for the first half of 2026 which is “substantially higher” and that it had seen “exceptionally” high activity in the first four months of 2026, against a backdrop of the conflict in the Middle East.

The bank again made tweaks to its executive board, which has been shrunk since Bollinger took over last year. The Group general counsel, Christoph Hiestand, will not be part of the board going forward but will continue to report to the CEO, the bank said. The Co-Head of the western markets and Switzerland region, Thomas Frauenlob will, effective June 1, be joining the executive board along with Co-Head Global Products and Solutions, Rajesh Manwani.

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