Goldman Sachs nabbed a team of Credit Suisse wealth managers in Germany. The U.S. bank is signaling that it won't be the last time it poaches from Swiss private banks.
A team of four private bankers in Germany led by Pascal Meinherz (pictured below) defected from Credit Suisse to Goldman Sachs, German business daily «Handelsblatt» (behind paywall, in German) reported on Monday. The U.S. bank is hiring Meinherz, who was responsible for the Swiss bank's wealthy clients in northern and western Germany, as a managing director, while his two colleagues Alexis Ehrsam and Philipp Altschwager are being hired as executive directors.
Meinherz was with Credit Suisse in Frankfurt for just shy of four years, and previously worked for LGT in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. Before he became a banker, he was skied for Switzerland's national cross-country team.
American Ambitions
The German raid signals Goldman Sachs' growing ambitions with Europe's super-wealthy. Last year, the bank said it planned to hire at least 30 private bankers specialized in so-called ultra-high net worth clients (generally viewed as those with more than $50 million in assets) – exactly the same pond UBS and Credit Suisse are fishing in.
At the U.S. bank's strategy day last week, CEO David Solomon repeated his desire to lift the business. Other major banks are also increasingly encroaching on the territory, which has traditionally been dominated by Swiss wealth managers.
