Lombard Odier sees private debt, venture capital, and private equity are seen as areas ripe for growth. Managing Partner Jean-Pascal Porcherot is setting ambitious expansion targets.

Geneva-based private bank Lombard Odier is planning to tap into the burgeoning private markets business by doubling its team dedicated to the sector.

«In the end, it’s going to be a very large team,» managing partner Jean-Pascal Porcherot, said in an interview with «Bloomberg» (behind paywall). «We have a five-year business plan where we are going to hire quite a significant number of people.»

Doubling in Size

The team is currently made up of about three dozen employees and a major recruitment drive to double the team is the in the planning stages according to the report.

Deal flow is the key to success, and Lombard Odier is not looking to go at it alone but rather said to be looking at direct deals. It plans to continue working with roughly 100 private markets firms with which it has dealt since 2007 when it launched its private markets business.

Porcherot said over the past ten years, value creation in a company's life cycle is increasingly coming through private markets and is something wealth managers can't ignore. It's «gone from 'nice to have' to a 'must have' allocation in portfolios,» he told the news outlet.

«We are trying to make sure we have access to good deal flow," Porcherot said. "We do it by making sure we have the right partners and having  value we can add to the companies.»