Deutsche Bank has poached a 30-year private banking veteran from a Swiss rival, finews.com reports exclusively. The banker is the latest in a series of high-profile hires by the German bank to kickstart its business with wealthy clients.
Peter Schmid joins the Frankfurt-based lender mid-March next year as head of northern and central Europe, finews.com has learned. A spokesman for Deutsche Bank confirmed the hire. The well-known Swiss banker joins from Union Bancaire Privee, where he was instrumental in the Swiss bank's successful acquisition of Coutts International two years ago.
The move is an unconventional one for a 56-year-old private banker: Schmid could have presumably easily spent the remaining nine years of his career at UBP, a family-controlled Geneva private bank.
Schmid's defection for Deutsche underscores the German bank's willpower – and financial backing – to bolsters its private bank. Switzerland, still the world's largest offshore market, is a key chunk of this.
Aggressive Hiring
He replaces Carsten Kahl, who has run the European region for the last nine years. Kahl and Europe wealth head Peter Hinder jointly decided on a changeover earlier this year, according to a memo to staff.
At Deutsche, Schmid will oversee the bank's business in the Nordics, cross-border Germany, France and Austria, and Luxembourg, where it has a booking platform. The Duchy is set to gain in importance after Britain leaves the European Union. The bank doesn't split out how much it manages in northern and central Europe, but its overall Europe, Middle East and Africa assets stood at 47 billion euros in September.
In June, Deutsche Bank set out to hire 100 private bankers worldwide, part of a plan under CEO John Cryan to lessen its reliance on investment banking and to tap clients with both sides of its business.
«Size Matters»
Two weeks later, it hired Michael Morley, one of the world's best-known private bankers and the ex-CEO of Coutts. In Switzerland, new head Hinder wasted little time in hiring notable bankers such as Paul Arni, a former Julius Baer banker.
Schmid, the newest hire, will report to Hinder, who also oversees Deutsche's wider European wealth business; the two bankers well as Arni know each other from UBS. Schmid will be based in Zurich and also join the Swiss subsidiary bank's management.
«In wealth management, size is increasingly important. That is clear from the consolidation we have already seen, and the market is moving more forcefully in that direction,» Schmid told finews.com. The German bank's pledge to prioritize wealth management as well as its sheer size is an interesting proposition, he added.
Stellar Credentials
Schmid has extensive experience with a major foreign bank as well as stellar credentials at home including a degree from the prestigious University of St. Gallen. This makes him one of the few Swiss bankers who can straddle the divide between investment banking and wealth management, a highly desirable skill in the ultra-wealthy echelon.
He began at UBS, consulted with PWC and Unisys before another, longer stint at UBS' private bank. From 2010, he was Merrill Lynch's CEO in Switzerland until the bank was sold to Julius Baer. Schmid has been with UBP for the last three years, running its key Zurich branch.
