Julius Baer Managed Assets Grow

ZURICH—Julius Baer Group AG said Tuesday that the Swiss bank's assets under management rose 2% from the end of 2014, even as clients in Western Europe continued to pull money out and inflows from some regions slowed.

In an interim report, Zurich-based Julius Baer said assets under management grew during the first 10 months of 2015 to 297 billion Swiss francs ($295.7 billion). The bank said the result was due to market performance and acquisitions, including the purchase of Bank of America Corp.'s Merrill Lynch wealth-management business outside of the U.S., which was first announced in 2012.

Julius Baer said that the strengthened Swiss franc took a bite out of its managed assets, which saw an 11 billion franc negative currency impact.

Net inflows were affected as clients in France and Italy continued to pull money out as they declared their Swiss accounts to tax authorities at home, Julius Baer said, and due to a slowdown in net new money from Eastern Europe and Latin America.

Net inflows were "just below the low end" of the bank's target range of 4% to 6% growth, Julius Baer said.

Julius Baer said its gross margin for the first 10 months of the year was 0.95 percentage point, compared with 0.94 for all of 2014.

The bank releases detailed financial results twice a year, in addition to interim reports.

Write to John Letzing at [e-mail]

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 10, 2015 04:15 ET (09:15 GMT)

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