Quintet is poaching five private bankers from UBS for its newly-opened office in Copenhagen.
The Luxembourg-based wealth manager is leaning heavily on the Swiss giant, tapping five private bankers for a soon-to-be opened office devoted to the wealthy in the Nordics. The region is led by Søren Kjær, a seven-year veteran of UBS who defected to Quintet last year.
Kjær is hiring Lars Hellum, Kim Høgsberg, and Henning Kjær Sand as executive directors; ex-UBS Denmark branch manager Miriam Ørum Sørensen in a similar role, and Henrik Wyrwik as a managing director and head of Denmark. All appointments are effective immediatel; Ørum Sørensen has been with Quintet since November.
Europe Growth Plans
The Qatari-owned private bank is expanding shortly after the sudden death of its figurehead and CEO Juerg Zeltner. Formerly UBS' long-standing top private banker, Zeltner had invested in Quintet, or KBL as it was previously known, and vowed to wring more value out of the wealth manager.
One of his partners, 64-year-old Danish banker Jakob Stott, took over following Zeltner's death three weeks ago. Quintet said Zeltner's death doesn't change the bank's ambitions, noting that Qatar's ruling al-Thani family injected significant fresh capital over the last six months to support the growth ambitions.
Series of UBS Exits
Since Zeltner's death, Swiss CEO Dagmar Kamber-Borens exited. UBS' ex-top European banker Thomas Rodermann joined as CEO of loss-making Merck Finck as well as in Quintet's Europe «hub head» role.
The five Scandinavian private bankers are the latest in a series of advisers and executives Quintet poached from UBS. It previously nabbed Ole Jensby, a private banker specialized in super-rich Nordic clients.
Planned Swiss Launch
The Nordics represents a new market for Quintet. Its plans for Switzerland – acquiring a bank license through the acquisition of Bank am Bellevue – mark a return: the wealth manager offloaded its Swiss bank under previous management five years ago to Banque Internationale a Luxembourg.
Switzerland represents one of three hubs Quintet plans to slim itself into in Europe, alongside the U.K., and home market Luxembourg. The group encompasses eight European private banks including U.K. regional wealth lender Brown Shipley and Dutch Insinger Gilissen.
