Julius Baer, a Swiss banking group has set up shop in the country after almost three years after its acquisition of the wealth management business of DSP Merrill Lynch. The launch of the same was postponed due to a delay in the approvals from the horde of complications in the deal and regulators. This was claimed by the officials in the company.
Atul Singh, the MD and CEO India of Julius Baer stated that they had to get the approvals from different regulators. Besides the RBI and Sebi, they had to get clearance from India’s Competition Commission. The reason is that the deal between Julius Baer and DSP Merril was above a specific threshold level.
Julius Baer is one of the oldest companies in wealth management in the world. The Indian wealth assets of Merril Lynch were acquired by Swiss Bank as a part of the deal between these two companies in the year 2012. During the deal, Merrill Lynch was the leading wealth advisor handling the domestic assets that are worth Rs 25,000 crore.
As per Thomas Meier, an executive board member and the head of Asia Pacific, the company Julius Baer conceded that there were complications. As there was no on-shore presence in India during the time of this deal, the company knew that it could be challenging. The transferring of the assets happened only after the firm set up the facilities onshore.
Well, Julius Baer is coming to the country when the native wealth managers have managed to turn the market share at the expense of the global wealth managers. Most of these domestic wealth management firms exercise assets over Rs 50,000 crore.
Meier stated that they have built a base on their inner strengths. They cannot copy the global investment strategies to implement in India and hence, they have to make it happen in the Indian way.
