BEKB, the cantonal bank of Bern, has had to grapple with more challenging conditions in the first half and generated a lower pretax profit. The CEO will take early retirement next year.
BEKB, whose headquarters lie adjacent to the federal parliament and opposite the central bank, is looking for a new boss. Hanspeter Ruefenacht, who’s been in charge since 2012, will retire June 30, 2018, at the age of 61. Under his guidance, the bank trimmed the business as a whole, cut its costs and reduced the number of staff.
In the first six months of 2018 the costs remained more or less flat, but pretax profit dropped to 65.5 million Swiss francs ($65.7 million) from almost 80 million. The reasons for this drop were write-downs and a decline in revenue from the interest business, the bank said in a statement on Friday (in German).
Net profit however rose 2 percent to 58 million francs thanks to divestments and the release of reserves.
Cautious Outlook
The bank essentially was able to boost its business with a higher volume of loans and more assets at the wealth management divisions. Still, with lower returns from interest-carrying loans and wobbly financial markets, BEKB still fared worse than in 2017.
The bank also spent 36 million francs to hedge against higher interest rates, unchanged from the same period in 2017. For the full year, BEKB expects to achieve a slightly better result than last year.
