Despite a good financial year Cutbacks at Julius Baer - 400 jobs lost

Julius Baer is cutting 400 jobs despite a good financial year. This will be announced on Monday.

The Julius Baer Group has significantly increased its profit again in 2024 after the slump in the previous year due to the Signa debacle. Despite this, the announcement of redundancies followed on Monday morning: 400 jobs are to be cut, the bank announced at a conference call on the annual results.

The past year actually went well for the bank: profit rose to 1.02 billion Swiss francs, which corresponds to an increase of 125 percent, as Julius Baer announced on Monday. In 2023, the private bank had to report a halving of its profit due to high write-downs of 606 million francs on loans to the insolvent Signa Group of Austrian investor René Benko.

The private bank's assets under management (AuM) amounted to CHF 497 billion at the end of 2024, compared to CHF 480 billion in October 2024. Compared to the end of 2023, AuM were actually a significant 16 percent higher.

Dividend unchanged

New money inflows of CHF 14.2 billion contributed to the increase, after the bank had been able to collect CHF 12.5 billion in new client assets in the previous year. Inflows to the private bank accelerated significantly, particularly in the second half of the year. In addition, there was a positive performance on the equity markets and a positive currency effect.

Julius Baer shareholders are to receive an unchanged dividend of CHF 2.60 per share for the past financial year. This means that the distribution will remain at this level for the fourth year in succession.

CEO Stefan Bollinger, who has only been in office since January 9, is already showing the first signs. He is further expanding the ongoing 2023-2025 cost-cutting program. After the cost initiatives had already led to annual savings of CHF 140 million by the end of 2024, further gross savings of CHF 110 million are to be achieved in the current year.

Executive Board reduced in size

The Executive Board will be reduced from 15 to five members with immediate effect. In addition to CEO Stefan Bollinger, it now comprises COO Nic Dreckmann, Chief Risk Officer Oliver Bartholet, Chief Financial Officer Evie Kostakis and Chief Legal Officer Christoph Hiestand.

Julius Baer intends to present a strategy update, including new medium-term targets, "before summer 2025", according to the statement. It is also still unclear who will take over as Chairman of the Board of Directors from April. Incumbent Romeo Lacher announced at the end of January that he would not be standing for re-election at the Annual General Meeting in April.