Julius Baer became the latest wealth manager to report an inflow of client assets in late 2022 after bulk clients were withdrawn from Swiss rival Credit Suisse.
Julius Baer recorded inflows of CHF 9 billion (USD 9.9 billion) in the second half of the year, the bank reported on Thursday morning, saying the “significant acceleration towards the end of the year” had outflows of CHF 1 billion in balanced over the previous six months.
Rising interest rates helped push the bank’s annual net profit to SFr1 billion but still fell 12 per cent short of last year’s record result as customers took a more cautious approach to investing earlier in the year.
“We are closing the 2020-2022 strategy cycle with the second-best result ever,” said CEO Philipp Rickenbacher.
“Over the period, we have fundamentally transformed our business, overcoming various operational challenges and achieving all of the financial goals we set ourselves three years ago.”
Clients withdrew billions of dollars from Credit Suisse late last year after rumors circulated on social media about their financial health.
Earlier this week, Swiss wealth manager UBS reported an inflow of client funds in the last quarter of 2022, which helped boost its profits by 23 percent.
UBS bought back $5.6 billion worth of stock last year and planned to pay out another $5 billion in buybacks this year.
Julius Baer, meanwhile, said it expects to meet its target of returning CHF 400 million to shareholders in the form of buybacks by the end of February, leaving the dividend unchanged at CHF 2.60 per share.
The bank’s shares are up more than 40 percent to SFr59.72 over the past three months as it has benefited along with other global banks from rising interest rates.
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