One Swiss Bank Turns Profit Faster Than Expected

One Swiss Bank, born of a 2021 merger of One Swiss Bank in Lugano and Geneva's Banque Profil de Gestion, turned a profit last year which came more quickly than expected.

One Swiss Bank achieved a net profit of 657,876 francs last year, compared to a loss of 4.8 million francs in 2021 when its merger was completed. The positive result comes ahead of schedule, the Geneva-based private bank reported Friday.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) for the full year amounted to 5.3 million francs of which 4 million was generated in the second half of the year, resulting in an EBITDA margin of 18.7 percent.

Challenging Year

«After a challenging year in which global financial markets experienced unprecedented turmoil, we are pleased to report that ONE swiss bank’s financial turnaround is now complete. When our merger was completed in June 2021, our baseline scenario was to achieve a net profit within 24 months. This goal was actually achieved in less than 18 months despite the well-known series of shocks that severely impacted financial markets in 2022,» CEO Grégoire Pennone said of the results.

Like many other institutions managing client wealth, One Swiss Bank also reported a drop in its Assets Under Management (AuM). Last year, AuM fell eleven percent to 4.51 billion francs from 5.05 billion and was down mainly due to negative market effects across all business units. AuM fell 9.5 percent in wealth management, 15.2 percent in asset management while falling 9.5 percent in asset services.

Unhappy With the Bank's Share Price

The decline of AuM was almost entirely due to market effects with the net effect of new inflows and outflows close to zero, according to the bank.

«As our AuM are predominantly invested, we believe that this decline, which is in line with what we have observed among our direct competitors, could be reversed in 2023,» Pennone said. He is unhappy with the bank's share price, something he deems unsatisfactory, with the underperformance mainly due to the thin market for the stock.