In promoting Philipp Rickenbacher to CEO, Julius Baer has chosen safety over risk. What does it mean for the Swiss wealth manager's new strategy?
Philipp Rickenbacher won the months-long search for the top job at Julius Baer. The 48-year-old «presented good ideas,» a person familiar with the search said. What exactly the former McKinsey consultant has in mind isn't yet clear.
Julius Baer and Chairman Romeo Lacher (pictured below) are being coy about what direction the bank is headed when Rickenbacher takes over. Lacher, a veteran of Credit Suisse who joined Julius Baer just three months ago, had flagged changes: Rickenbacher is to write the 129-year-old Swiss wealth manager's next chapter.
The bank has already begun working on a new strategy, but financial targets remain unchanged for the moment. So what chapter will Rickenbacher, a 15-year-veteran of Julius Baer, write for the bank?
Growth vs Clean-Up
Julius Baer's last ten years were first a «growth above all else»-era under ex-CEO Boris Collardi, who led the sleepy private bank on a stormy acquisition path. Collardi vaulted Julius Baer onto the global wealth management map, but the regulatory hangover from this period of heady growth has been painful.
The next, shorter chapter is the clean-up era driven, ironically, by CEO Bernhard Hodler, who spent years as risk and compliance boss under Collardi (he was, according to several insiders, regularly overruled by the CEO).
No «Star Banker»
In less than two years at the helm, Hodler restructured Julius Baer's troubled Latin American arm, oversaw an $87 million clean-up of client portfolios dubbed «Atlas,» and driven technology improvements. Before he leaves, the 59-year-old wants to conclude the portfolio clean-up.
The next chapter will be less gung-ho than the glamorous Collardi years, and longer and richer in content than the tenure of Hodler. Cerebral and analytical, Rickenbacher has nothing of the «star banker» status of Collardi or ex-Credit Suisse wealth boss Iqbal Khan. He is virtually unknown outside of Julius Baer and little-known in the wider wealthy management industry.
Radical Thinker
To be clear, Rickenbacher's ambition matches that of the two rivals: the former McKinsey consultant is known within the bank as a radical thinker who comes up with countless ideas. «He can think outside the box,» says a banker who has worked with him in the past.
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