It seems as though an acquisition strategy at Union Bancaire Privée is paying off in terms of adding to assets and sources of income. Less positively, a sliding dollar rate versus the Swiss franc affected the figures.

Union Bancaire Privée, the Switzerland-headquartered private bank operating in several countries, yesterday reported SFr60.6 million ($75.4 million) in operating profit on trading operations and fair value options for the six months ending 30 June. That’s a year-on-year gain of 15.3 per cent. However, group profit dropped 12.7 per cent to SFr120.7; costs rose at a faster clip than income.

Total operating costs dented the bottom line to some extent – rising 16 per cent year-on-year to SFr514 million. Net operating income rose 9.7 per cent, to SFr736 million, the bank said in a statement.

Net fees and commission income rose to SFr404.2 million from $370.3 million. 

Client assets stood at SFr171.7 billion at the end of June, rising 13.8 per cent from a year earlier. Asset growth was principally driven by integrating the acquired Société Générale Private Banking (Suisse) SA and SG Kleinwort Hambros businesses in the first six months of this year.

Equities recover, but falling dollar hurts
Also, SFr4.7 billion of this increase was caused by rising markets in the reporting period – which might suggest that the damage caused by the stock selloff after the US tariff announcement on 2 April has been largely unwound – for now.

However, the market impact was mixed on assets. UBP said rising markets were offset to some extent by foreign exchange moves, such as the rapid decline in the dollar against the Swiss franc, erasing SFr13.2 billion from client assets. When recalibrated in dollars, client assets rose by 26.6 per cent to $215.7 billion, up from $170.4 billion at the end of 2024. 

(Editor's note: The approach of this Geneva-headquartered bank to expand by acquisitions is bearing fruit, although the impact of the sliding dollar-Swiss franc exchange rate is taking some of the shine off the results.)

New RMs, integration and compliance costs
In other details, UBS said the 13.1 per cent gain to personnel expenses was mainly caused by recruitment of new relationship managers in Asia late in 2024, as well as by additions to the compliance and risk management side, and the effect of integrating the Kleinwort Hambros and Société Générale businesses, as mentioned above.

UBS said its total equity held steady at SFr2.768.6 billion; its liquidity ratio was 294.6 per cent and the Tier 1 capital ratio was 21.3 per cent – both well above regulatory requirements. 

“In the first-half period, we completed the acquisition of Société Générale’s private banking activities in Switzerland and the United Kingdom, and the positive effects will materialise after the two entities have been fully integrated. Those transactions form part of our group’s growth strategy, aimed at expanding the products and services we offer to private and institutional clients, whilst also strengthening our presence in priority markets. They also enabled us to post solid results in the context of a weak dollar, falling interest rates and greater market volatility,” Guy de Picciotto, UBP’s chief executive, said.

(Earlier this summer, this news service interviewed  Michaël Lok, group chief investment officer and co-CEO of asset management, about its investment and asset allocation strategy.)