Julius Baer’s AUM Grow Substantially in 10M-2024

Supported by accelerated net new money inflows since the end of June, Julius Baer Group, the Swiss-based private banking corporation, on Thursday said that it has realised substantial growth in assets under management (AUM) between January and October this year.

The Group’s AUM grew y-t-d by 12% to $543.52 billion and the total client assets reached a record high of $645.43 billion. The increase in AUM was driven by strong stock markets as well as solid net inflows of $12.46 billion. The positive currency impact experienced in the first half of the year was partly reversed over the past four months.

Compared to the first half of 2024, when net inflows were at $4.19 billion (1.7% annualised), net new money in the July–October 2024 period accelerated to $8.49 billion (4.8% annualised). The latter result included a large single transactional inflow of which the majority left in November. Excluding this transaction, the July–October inflow pace was 4.2%, the company said in its Interim Management Statement for the first ten months of 2024.

“Net new money flowed in predominantly from clients domiciled in strategic key markets in Europe (especially the UK and Germany), Asia (particularly Singapore and India), and the Middle East (especially the UAE). The impact of client deleveraging diminished meaningfully compared to previous years,” the Group said.

Strongly Capitalised

The Group said that the final Basel 3 standard (B3F) will be implemented in Switzerland with effect from 1 January 2025. In the first ten months of 2024, on the basis of the currently applicable standard, the Group’s CET1 capital ratio strengthened to 16.7% (14.6% at the end 2023) and the total capital ratio rose to 24.7% (24% at the end of 2023).

This development was reinforced by the further benefit of the ‘pull-to-par’ reversal of the decline (back in 2021 and 2022) in the value of bonds held in the Group’s treasury portfolio as well as a further reduction in the private debt loan book to just above $0.45 billion as against $0.91 at the end 2023 and $0.68 billion at the end of June this year, at 100% credit risk weighting.

At these levels, the Group’s CET1 and total capital ratios remain well above the Group’s own floors of 11% and 15% respectively, and significantly in excess of the regulatory requirements of 8.3% and 12.5% respectively.

Following the redemption of the AT1 bonds issued in 2017 ($300 million aggregate nominal amount) in September 2024, the Group’s tier 1 leverage ratio was 4.8%, substantially above the regulatory requirement of 3%.