Summit Notebook
Exclusive outtakes from industry leaders
Private bankers must show restraint in Europe
Private bankers remain in demand in some key European markets, but they will have to live with lower salaries if they want to continue to be part of this business. Top wealth managers told the Reuters Global Private Banking summit that they have stopped offering the huge packages seen in the run up to the financial crisis of 2008-2009. “We are not offering packages that are outlandish. And I do not see the other banks doing that either,” said Samir Raslan, General Manager of Citibank (Switzerland). Raslan said the structure of banker’s salaries had also changed. Relationship managers who form the backbone of a private bank’s workforce were getting higher fixed salaries than before, but no more huge bonuses. “We see more rational hiring, rather than aggressive, open cheque-book hiring,” said Raslan.
Private Bank finds synergy in public bar
It is a little known fact that private bank Wegelin, Switzerland’s oldest bank is also active in the bars and restaurants business.
In its ‘Nonolet’ bars – a play on the Latin saying pecunia non olet (money doesn’t stink) – in St. Gallen and in Geneva, hedge fund managers and other financial professionals rub shoulders with other locals in the early evening over sparkling wine or champagne and snacks.
It may sound an odd sort of diversification, but Wegelin says there were forced to try a new line of business to ensure an upmarket crowd mingled on the ground floor of the Wegelin building.
“You cannot have a strange business there like a kebab shop,” said Wegelin partner Christian Raubach.
Wegelin was forced to launch a hostile takeover on a local bar which had attracted a lot of unruly drinkers near its St. Gallen branch office.
“We bought the bar, we fired the owners, and we put a nice Café in so we get a different crowd. The crowd that sits during the day drinking coffee and not vomiting drinking beer at night,” Raubach said.
The operation proved to be a success but is unlikely to develop in to a brand new business area.
