Swiss wealth manager Julius Baer is the refuge to which many clients are fleeing as the financial market turmoil continues to hurt other banks.

Swiss wealth manager Julius Baer is the refuge to which many clients are fleeing as the financial market turmoil continues to hurt other banks, according to the group's private banking head. "People believe us when we say we don't have these problems that other banks are having. That is bringing us lots of new contacts right now, clients and also assets," Alex Widmer told Cash Daily in an interview. But at the same time, clients were also less actively engaged in trading, while the value of their assets, which form the basis of a private bank's fee income, was shrinking because of lower equity markets, Mr Widmer said. Pure wealth managers, unlike their larger rivals, have so far avoided the worst of the credit crunch. Mr Widmer said he was "not pessimistic" about his earlier promise of bringing in net new client money of 5 per cent of assets under management in private banking in 2008. He also repeated Julius Baer's earlier statement that it is keeping all options open for its US asset management arm. According to Reuters, industry sources have said it is looking to divest the unit by way of an IPO or management buy-out.