Wave of RMs tipped to move from Credit Suisse to Julius Baer

Apr 11, 2016

Another executive has joined Julius Baer from Credit Suisse, and as many as 20 relationship managers are set to make the same switch, say headhunters. Still, Credit Suisse's RM team in Asia has grown on a net basis in the past year.

Wave of RMs tipped to move from Credit Suisse to Julius Baer

Swiss private bank Julius Baer is not done with poaching executives from rival Credit Suisse. The latest to jump ship is Eleanor Yuen, and headhunters say as many as 20 relationship managers are set to follow the same route.

Both firms declined to comment, although Credit Suisse said it added 70 net new RMs in Asia Pacific last year, bringing the total to 590 as of end-2015. It also attracted Sfr17.8 billion ($19.6 billion) of net new assets in the same period and Sfr3.6 billion this year as of March 23. The bank said it planned to add 30-35 net new RMs in the first quarter.

Meanwhile Yuen has assumed the newly created role of Asia head of wealth and tax planning advisory at Julius Baer, effective immediately. Her appointment is the third to have been made public since Jimmy Lee took over as head of Asia Pacific in January. Lee was formerly market group head for Hong Kong at Credit Suisse Private Banking.

A Julius Baer spokeswoman said Yuen’s role was newly created but declined to elaborate on why it had been established at this time. The wealth and tax planning teams in Singapore and Hong Kong had previously reported into Luigi Vignola, head of the markets and investment solutions group for Asia Pacific.

Based in Hong Kong, Yuen will report to Vignola and Roger Stutz, global head of wealth and tax planning.

Yuen spent 11 years with Credit Suisse Trust, most recently as global head of wealth planners. The firm said there was a new senior hire in place to replace her, but declined to identify the individual.

Before joining the Swiss firm, she held senior roles in trust administration and marketing at Citi, Schroder Investment Management and HSBC International Trustee.

Last week Julius Baer announced the arrival of David Shick from Credit Suisse as head of Greater China. Based in Hong Kong, Shick effectively replaced Kaven Leung, who is retiring from his role as head of North Asia and deputy Asia-Pacific CEO.

Now reporting to Lee, Shick had been one of several China market leaders at Credit Suisse, where he was replaced internally with the promotion of Lelia Ho and Victor Chao to market leaders for the China team.

Since Lee joined Julius Baer in October, he has moved to bring in former colleagues from his previous employer. Earlier this year, he hired Torsten Linke to head private banking for Southeast Asia, replacing incumbent David Lim, who was subsequently named vice-chairman.

Both Leung and Lim had been deputies to Thomas Meier, whom Lee replaced after Meier moved back to Zurich.