The continued passivity of clients has left its mark on asset manager Julius Baer. The weakening of customer activity compared to the strong first quarter of 2021 continued from the second quarter into the third quarter and well into October, the Swiss institute announced on Monday. This is primarily reflected in lower fee income from securities transactions. The gross margin, which relates the operating income to the assets under management, fell to a good 82 basis points in the first ten months of 2021 from 88 basis points in 2020 as a whole. In the previous year, the effects of the Covid crisis had led to a trading boom at many banks .
Investors reacted disappointed to the interim report. On the stock exchange, the shares slumped at times by around 5 percent in price. "While financial service providers such as UBS or Leonteq hadn't noticed much of a slowdown in customer activity in the third quarter of 2021, the traditional summer slump at Julius Baer apparently came to fruition, so that the institute was unable to fully meet the high expectations in terms of margin and efficiency," explained ZKB analyst Michael Kunz.
However, Bär stuck to its medium-term goals.
In the current year, too, the Zurich money house achieved the targets.
So Bär came to a cost-income ratio of a good 63 percent and thus exceeded the target.
In addition, the bank saw a turnaround in customer activity.
The first results for November suggest a possible rebound in the last two months of the year.