The Swiss private bank's profit surged by more than half despite several hefty charges to set aside past missteps. It also launched a share buyback on top of a year-end payout.

Zurich-based Julius Baer's profit climbed to 698.60 Swiss francs ($783.8 million) from 465 francs last year, it said in a statement on Monday. The rise comes despite two a 190 million franc write-down on Kairos, an Italian acquisition, and 73 million for a U.S. money laundering probe.

The bank's income rose nearly six percent to 3.4 billion amid a trading boom with its wealthy clientele, while spending was virtually unchanged. This allowed the lender to dramatically improve its cost-income ratio to 66.4 percent, from more than 71 percent in 2019.

Cleaning Up Past

Julius Baer said it will pay shareholders a 1.75 franc per share dividend – up from 1.50 francs last year – as well as launch a one-year long buyback of as much as 450 million francs in its own shares.

2020 represents the first full year of CEO Philipp Rickenbacher's three-year strategy for the Swiss wealth manager. It spent much of 2018 and 2019 cleaning up accounts of its dealings with a Venezuelan graft scandal, for which it was heavily sanctioned last February.

Growth Markets Deliver

Julius Baer's 1,376 private bankers (91 less than in 2019) hoovered up 15.1 billion francs last year, from Europe, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, and Mexico, it said, without mentioning its home market. Kairos continued to bleed assets.

Julius Baer's overall assets rose two percent to 434 billion francs. The new money represents growth of 3.5 percent against its existing assets.

Julius Baer last year ditched a long-held target of netting at least 4 percent last year, a tacit admission that it had accepted tainted money in its period of heady growth from 2009 to 2017.

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