One of the most prestigious names in KBL's stable is slimming its top management. The move follows a dramatic worsening of its results last year.

Merck Finck's deputy CEO Michael Krume will leave at year-end, the Munich-based wealth manager said in a statement on Wednesday. He won't be replaced, meaning Merck Finck's top management will slim to two executives: CEO Matthias Schellenberg, and risk and operational chief Olivier Kuetgens.

The private bank said the 60-year-old Krume's exit after 12 years in top management is the result of retirement plans. His departure follows a much wider loss of 10 million euros ($11 million) at the 149-year-old wealth manager last year, from 300,000 euros in 2017, as finews.com reported in August.

Emergency Injection

Merck Finck is arguably KBL's ritziest name, but also its most troubled: the bank liquidated some legal reserves to shield itself from a worse loss and took a 15.8 million euro injection from its Qatari-owned parent, KBL. The bank missed its budget on almost every level last year and quietly dropped an asset target.

Under CEO and investor Juerg Zeltner, Luxembourg-based KBL is in the process of suiting up for reinvention in the mold of 214-year-old Genevan wealth manager Pictet, as finews.com exclusively reported in August. KBL's eight independently-operated European banks are poised to rebrand early next year. Merck Finck, as well as Brown Shipley in the U.K., are expected to maintain their own names for now.

Bank's Public Face

Merck Finck has pledged that a swath of private banker hires will bear fruit next year. The exit of Krume, first reported by blog «finanz-szene.de» (in German), shows it is also interested in slimming where it can to tame its bloated cost-income ratio of 120 percent. 

The wealth veteran, a «privé»-style banker who stood in for the bank's fortunes with his own funds until Merck Finck incorporated three years ago, was considered the bank's public face to clients and within the industry for years.

«He helped shape Merck Finck in decisive periods of change and together with his top management colleagues, stands for the development of our firm into a modern private bank,» Chairman Georg Freiherr von Boeselager said in a statement.