Julius Baer Group Ltd.’s aggressive drive to hire private bankers slowed in 2017, signaling Switzerland’s third-largest wealth manager may struggle to add new assets at the same pace as under former Chief Executive Officer Boris Collardi.
The bank hired about half its planned number of 80 relationship managers last year, while the lender’s assets under management lagged estimates. Margins also remain under pressure, prompting a stock decline of as much as 4.3 percent in Zurich on Thursday. Collardi, who left the Zurich-based lender in December, hired 166 wealth managers in 2016.