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Pictet Group

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The Pictet Group
IndustryPrivate banking, Wealth management, Institutional asset management, Asset services, Investment funds
Founded23 July 1805 in Geneva
FounderJacob-Michel-François de Candolle
Jacques-Henry Mallet Edit this on Wikidata
HeadquartersGeneva, Switzerland
767,904,000 Swiss franc (2022) Edit this on Wikidata
Total assetsCHF 435 billion (December 2014)[1]
Number of employees
c. 3800 in 26 locations worldwide
Websitehttp://www.pictet.com/

Pictet is a Swiss private banking institution, founded in 1805 in Geneva. The Pictet group holding is organised as a partnership of 7 owner managers responsible for the entire activity of the Pictet Group

The Pictet Group, headquartered in Geneva, has offices in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Basel, Brussels, Dubai, Florence, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Lausanne, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Milan, Montreal, Munich, Nassau, Osaka, Paris, Rome, Singapore, Taipei, Tel Aviv, Turin, Tokyo and Zurich.

Pictet offers private banking, institutional asset management, investment funds, asset services and services to independent asset managers. The bank specialises on independent asset management and distributes more than 100 investment funds including equity funds, bond funds, specialised funds, and sector- and theme based funds.

The firm has 3,800 employees, including 900 investment managers, and runs 25 branches around the world.[2] According to the Scorpio Partnership Global Private Benchmark 2014[3] the bank had 338.1 USD Bn of assets under management (AuM) an increase of 12% on 2013.[4]

History

Pictet traces its origin to the foundation of Banque de Candolle Mallet & Cie in Geneva on 23 July 1805. On that day, Jacob-Michel-François de Candolle and Jacques-Henry Mallet signed, with three limited partners[5], a Scripte de Société (memorandum of association) to form a partnership[6]. Like all Geneva banks at the time, it started out trading in goods, but soon abandoned trading to concentrate on assisting clients in their financial and commercial business and advising them on managing their wealth. By the 1830s, it held a broad range of securities on behalf of clients, to diversify their risks.

On the death of de Candolle in 1841, his wife’s nephew Edouard Pictet joined the partnership, and the name Pictet has remained with the bank ever since. Between 1890 and 1929, the Bank went through a period of substantial growth, the number of employees rising from 12 to more than 80 over 30 years. Although the Pictet family had been intimately engaged with the bank since the mid 19th century, it was only in 1926 that the company changed its name to Pictet & Cie.

After a period of relative stagnation marked by the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Second World War, Pictet began to expand in the 1950s as the Western world entered a prolonged period of prosperity and economic growth. In the late 1960s, the Bank embarked on the new business of institutional asset management, which has since grown to account for around half its total assets under management[7]. In 1974, it opened an office in Montreal, the first of its current network of 26 offices around the world. Its workforce of 70 staff in 1950 rose to 300 by 1980[8].

Pictet has focused on wealth management from the start and it continues to do so today, providing three main groups of services to individuals, families and institutions around the world: wealth management, asset management and asset services. It has now become Switzerland’s third largest asset manager, and also one of Europe’s largest bank in private hands[9]

In 2014, Pictet changed its legal structure from a simple partnership to become a corporate partnership (société en commandite par actions) which acts as a holding company for the Group’s activities around the world. This was designed to enable the Group to manage its businesses in an international environment[10], and also allows the seven partners who are owner managers of the Group to preserve the rules of succession which have remained unchanged for more than 200 years.

Under those rules, ownership cannot be passed down to partners’ children: it is a temporary status which ends once a partner has retired. Partners hand over ownership of the Group in batches every five to ten years so that there are always partners from three generations connected to the family, to avoid problems that can arise with generational change[9].

Pictet operates by assigning business activities and key functions like human resources, risk control and legal affairs to different partners. Small committees supervise the various corporate activities so that no single partner is solely responsible for an entire area. The Group’s Senior Partner, who is the eldest partner at the time of appointment, has no direct operational responsibilities but has oversight for all areas concerning auditing, risk and compliance[9].

Structure

Wealth management

Pictet Wealth Management provides private banking expertise, wealth solutions for owners of larger fortunes and family office services for families of exceptional wealth. The services include dedicated asset management, advice on strategy and investment selection, execution in global markets, safeguarding client assets and continuous monitoring. For hedge funds, private equity and real estate investments, Pictet Alternative Advisors, an independent unit, selects third-party investment managers to construct alternative investment portfolios for investors.

Operating out of 19 Pictet offices worldwide, Pictet Wealth Management had CHF 166bn of assets under management at December 31, 2014 and employed 686 full-time equivalent employees, including 341 private bankers. Pictet Alternative Advisors has total alternative assets under management of CHF 16bn, including CHF 9.5bn in hedge funds, CHF6bn in private equity and CHF 800m in real estate[1].

On November 26, 2012, it was reported that Pictet's wealth management unit was the target of a United States Department of Justice investigation.[11]

Asset management

Pictet Asset Management manages assets for institutional investors and investment funds, including large pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and financial institutions. It also manages assets for individual investors through an extensive range of mandates, products and services. It provides clients with active and quantitative support for managing equities, fixed income, multi-asset and alternative strategies.

Since 1997, the department has been developing Socially Responsible Investments (SRI). It now manages SRI core equity portfolios for all major markets. It has also taken a thematic approach, focusing on environmental themes or sectors such as clean energy and timber that are key to the concept of sustainability[12].

Operating out of 17 Pictet offices worldwide, Pictet Asset Management had CHF 157bn of assets under management at December 31, 2014 and employed 740 full-time equivalent employees, including 320 investment professionals[1].

Asset services

References

  1. ^ a b c "Annual report 2014" (PDF). www.pictet.com. The Pictet Group. 31 December 2014. Retrieved 30 June 2015.
  2. ^ http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000792603&fid=1725
  3. ^ "Global Private Banking Benchmark 2014 - Scorpio Report". Scorpio Partnership.
  4. ^ "Global Private Banking Benchmark 2014 - Scorpio Report". Scorpio Partnership.
  5. ^ Jean-Louis Mallet, brother of Jacques-Henry, Paul Martin and Jean-Louis Falquet
  6. ^ "Pictet & Cie", 1805-1955, Atar, Geneva, 1955.
  7. ^ "200 years of History : one bank and the men who built it", Atar, Geneva, 2005.
  8. ^ "Pictet & Cie, Genève : 1805-1980", Geneva, Atar, 1980.
  9. ^ a b c Städeli, Markus (27 November 2011). "Eckpunkte einer langen Firmengeschichte" [Turning points in a long corporate history]. NZZ (in German). Zurich. Retrieved 30 June 2015.
  10. ^ Sallier, Pierre-Alexandre (6 February 2013). "Schisme chez les banquiers privés" [Schism amongst private bankers]. Le Temps (in French). Geneva. Retrieved 30 June 2015.
  11. ^ Broom, Giles (26 November 2012). "Pictet Targeted in Widening U.S. Probe of Swiss Wealth Managers". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 30 June 2015.
  12. ^ "Socially Responsible Investment (SRI)". www.pictet.com. Pictet. Retrieved 30 June 2015.
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