Julius Baer Draws Up Shortlist to Pick CEO Replacement in Months
Julius Baer Draws Up Shortlist to Pick CEO Replacement in Months
(Bloomberg) -- Julius Baer Group Ltd. has put together a shortlist of both internal and external candidates to replace Chief Executive Officer Bernhard Hodler, and may make a decision by the third quarter as it seeks to end a run of setbacks.
Yves Robert-Charrue, the 45-year old head of Europe, is emerging as an internal front runner, according to people familiar with the matter. Iqbal Khan, head of Credit Suisse Group AG’s international wealth-management unit, is also on the list though it isn’t clear if he is interested in the role, the people said.
Julius Baer kicked off an effort to find a successor for Hodler earlier this year, and the bank hired a headhunting firm to seek out and review candidates, people familiar with the matter have said. The nomination committee, led by Charles Stonehill, is interviewing promising executives, they said. Executive board member Philipp Rickenbacher, head of intermediaries, is also among the internal candidates.
A spokesman for Julius Baer declined to comment.
Hodler, 59, took over at the end of 2017 after the unexpected resignation of Boris Collardi. Promoted to stabilize the bank, the former chief risk officer instead steered the bank through a rough year that saw its shares fall the most among Switzerland’s largest listed companies. While the stock has rebounded this year Julius Baer still dropped out of the index of the country’s 20 largest and most liquid stocks.
Romeo Lacher, a former Credit Suisse banker who worked closely with Kahn, took over as chairman in April, replacing Daniel Sauter. Lacher has held informal discussions with potential candidates about leading the country’s third-largest wealth manager, Bloomberg previously reported.
To contact the reporters on this story: Patrick Winters in Zurich at pwinters3@bloomberg.net;Jan-Henrik Förster in Zurich at jforster20@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dale Crofts at dcrofts@bloomberg.net, Ross Larsen
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