Jimmy Lee named Julius Baer Asian head
VETERAN banker Jimmy Lee has been appointed Asia-Pacific head of Julius Baer, and will also be the first Asian to have a seat on the executive board.
In a statement, Julius Baer said Mr Lee will join the bank on Oct 1 and the board next January.
Chief executive Boris Collardi said the appointment underscored the bank's commitment to Asia. "Three years ago, Asia was 10-15 per cent of our assets under management. In the (latest) figure, it is 20-25 per cent of our total asset base."
He added: "Asia today is a very big business . . . almost on par with Europe. If I compare, we took 125 years to get to where we are in Europe, and 10 years in Asia. You can imagine the growth rate that is the trend line." Julius Baer has 369 billion Swiss francs (S$529 billion) of client assets as at June this year, including 284 billion francs of assets under management (AUM).
Mr Lee will take over from Thomas Meier, who will return to Switzerland after 10 years in Asia, to become non-executive vice-chairman of wealth management from January.
Mr Lee was with the Credit Suisse group for around 11 years. He was most recently market group head in Hong Kong for Credit Suisse. Previously, he was CEO Asia for Clariden Leu. He headed the integration of the bank into Credit Suisse in Asia-Pacific in 2012/13.
Mr Collardi said the appointment helps to kick off the "next phase" of growth. "Bankers tell you past performance is no indication of the future, but we continue to have high expectations . . . We expect to continue to grow at or faster than the market simply because we are a pure play private bank." At a time when some banks are in consolidation, Julius Baer remains in hiring mode.
Some of the hires are for the group's initiative to "renew" its IT platform globally, which includes plans to replace the core banking platform. The project will be launched first in Asia, and completed in 2017. The group earlier said Asia was an "ideal template for future implementation in other regions", as it is a dynamic and fast-growing region.
He remains optimistic despite concerns over the ongoing volatility. "GDP growth translates into a pool of people with investible assets. What we've seen in the last six weeks in China doesn't give any reassurance to investors, to the population and entrepreneurs to make investments.
"But the pool here is so large . . . On a macro basis, over the next 10-20 years we're still going to have above average growth rates here compared to the rest of the world. From a macro point of view, I'm not worried," said Mr Collardi.
