Julius Baer money inflows for early 2024 fall far short of expectations
Recasts and writes through with comparison with expectations, analyst quote, share price
By Noele Illien
ZURICH, May 23 (Reuters) -Swiss bank Julius Baer BAER.S undershot expectations for new inflows of funds in the first four months of 2024 by a wide margin as it struggled to shrug off the fallout from its ties to collapsed property group Signa.
Net new money came in at 1 billion Swiss francs ($1.1 billion), it said in an interim management statement on Thursday.
That fell far short of an estimate of 5.7 billion francs from Vontobel and a prediction of 5 billion francs from Zuercher Kantonalbank. It was also less than half of a 2.5 billion francs forecast by RBC.
Shares in the bank were down 1.3% in early trading in Zurich.
The bank said in a statement that after "a negative start in January," net new money recovered to an annualised pace of 3% over the subsequent three months.
"Julius Baer must have suffered a very difficult January, with significant net new money outflows," Vontobel analyst Andreas Venditti wrote in a note to clients.
The net new money figures come despite Baer having increased its relationship managers by 95 in 2023, when it reported net inflows of 12.5 billion francs, and adding 35 relationship managers this year.
In one bright spot, Baer's assets under management rose 10% to 471 billion francs for the first four months of the year, driven by a positive currency impact and strong stock markets.
The Swiss lender had been tipped to benefit from Credit Suisse's downfall but in February it reported a 586 million Swiss franc write-off due to its exposure to Signa, costing former CEO Philipp Rickenbacher his job.
The bank is yet to announce who will replace him but has said it is looking for an external candidate and hopes to make an announcement by summer.
The wealth manager has previously said it will cut 250 jobs in 2024, impacting around 3% of the bank's workforce.
($1 = 0.9144 Swiss francs)
Reporting by Noele Illien; Editing by Edwina Gibbs
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