Julius Baer primes for second M&A wave in private banking

Singapore

JULIUS Baer, ranked the fifth-largest private bank in Asia, expects consolidation in the private-banking market in the next three years, as competing players buckle under the strain of costs and call it quits, said its top executive.

Speaking to The Business Times in Singapore, Bernhard Hodler, the bank's chief executive, said what sets the incoming second wave of mergers apart from the first wave - when Julius Baer scooped up Bank of America-Merrill Lynch's (BofAML) non-US wealth-management business in 2012 - is the better odds of compelling prices.