ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss private bank Julius Baer reported record first-half profits on Monday, aided by strong currency trading following Britain's surprise vote to leave the European Union.
The result of Britain's June 23 referendum caught many in the market off guard and triggered a rush of foreign exchange trading as the British pound fell sharply, helping Baer's adjusted net profit rise to 402 million Swiss francs ($407 mln) for the first half of the year.
This was ahead of analysts' forecasts and was Baer's best half-year result since the bank split from its asset management business in 2009.
Asked about the wider implications from Brexit for the bank, Chief Executive Boris Collardi said Baer was still assessing the implications.
"It's still relatively fresh," Collardi said in a call with reporters.
The better than expected numbers, also boosted by a 63 million franc gain from a pension fund plan amendment, initially pushed the bank's shares up by around 3 percent but they pared gains to 0.9 percent by 0755 GMT.
Baer, Switzerland's third-biggest private bank, said assets under management rose 4 percent to 311 billion francs in the first six months of 2016.
However, net new money, a volatile but important indicator of future earnings in wealth management, grew 3.7 percent, missing a goal of between 4 percent and 6 percent on an annualized basis.
That is one of Zurich-based Baer's three medium-term targets, all of which the bank reaffirmed.
In the past, Baer has relied on acquisitions to keep pace with much larger rivals UBS and Credit Suisse (SIX:CSGN). It is now also hoping that recruiting more private bankers will help win new clients and that some will bring clients with them.
Baer said it had hired more than 200 bankers this year, a net increase of close to 50 relationship managers.
Collardi said the hiring would continue into the second half and that struggles at rivals, some of whom are undergoing restructurings and are facing financial pressures, had made it easier to poach new private bankers.
"Given the difficulties that many of our competitors are having right now," Collardi said, "it's proving to be maybe a bit easier (to hire) than it has been in the past."