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Clean Client Book

This despite an ongoing program, Atlas, that is the most comprehensive review of the bank’s client base to date. It has resulted in a ruthless culling of clients who may be putting the bank at risk of regulatory or criminal infractions.

While its footprint in certain markets may have to shrink as a result, the soon-to-be-completed program is vaulting Julius Baer ahead of peers still struggling with legacy client and compliance issues. As one banker put it, «at least we know there are no more skeletons in our closet». That may well turn out to be a tall claim but at the very least, for the time being, the bank's top brass will be encumbered in their focus on growth not repair. 

Strong Onshore Tie-Ups 

One can almost picture Julius Baer directors and executives ripping up the Collardi playbook in their disappointment at his exit. They are replacing his acquisitive approach with what is perhaps the most nuanced expansion strategy amongst its peers: strong onshore collaborations that limit the bank’s exposure and crucially, investment, in key but developing markets.

The architect behind some of the bank’s most compelling partnerships, in Japan and Thailand for example, is Asia head Jimmy Lee. The model may have been born from a wariness of the high financial and organizational burden of acquisitions and their subsequent integrations (Lee was CEO of Clariden Leu in Asia when the bank was folded into parent Credit Suisse).

Chutzpah vs Elbow Grease

It allows Lee to expand in regions that can easily bolster revenue, without upending the ongoing cost-cutting drive at the bank. Dovetailing the expansion in Asia and the U.K. with shuttering operations in Amsterdam and Panama has worked well in strengthening the overall franchise.  

While it may have lost some of the chutzpah it previously made headlines for, Julius Baer is very far from being pallid or uninteresting. If anything, its decisions seem more deliberate. And if Rickenbacher’s reputation as the smartest man in the room is anything to go by, they are only likely to get more consideration. Perhaps one day even its shareholders will laud the change in aspiration from being the biggest bank to being the best-in-its-class.