The wealth-management divisions of national-champion universal banks have won most of the regional private banking awards in Western Europe. But Lombard Odier offers a powerful reminder of the capabilities of a pure-play private bank, owned by its managing partners who follow a business model solely focused on managing their clients’ assets.
When it last reported numbers for the first half of 2023, the Geneva-headquartered bank showed that this can be a profitable business. It delivered SFr704 million ($799 million) in operating income from managing SFr308 million of client assets, helped both by net inflows of new money and rising markets.
The partners are careful to run a strong and liquid balance sheet of SFr15.5 billion, with a common equity tier-1 ratio of 30% and a very conservative approach to credit risk in Lombard lending.
All of that maintains a stable rating of AA- from Fitch.
Lombard Odier is large enough to offer a comprehensive range of advisory wealth services, including succession planning, discretionary portfolio management and philanthropy.