Banque Pâris Bertrand Sturzda has been sold to a firm owned by its managers and to Investcorp.

Geneva-based Eric Sturdza Group has sold its holding in Banque Pâris Bertrand Sturzda, handing control to a Swiss holding company owned by the PBS management team, and sold a 40 per cent minority interest to Investcorp Europe.

The change will see the firm renamed Banque Pâris Bertrand SA. There will be no changes to the main governance structure of the bank.

As part of the transaction, Eric Sturdza Group was advised by MilleniumAssociates and Lenz and Staehelin.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

PBS was founded in 2009, blending the support of the Eric Sturdza Group - its principal shareholder - with the drive of its operational founding shareholders, managers Pierre Pâris and Olivier Bertrand. The bank holds SFr5.3 billion ($5.4 billion) of assets as of June this year, expanding at an annual rate of 35 per cent. The bank provides investment advice and solutions to more than 400 high net worth clients, family offices and institutions, mainly from Switzerland and other European nations.

Investcorp wants to reach $50 billion in AuM over the medium term, following its acquisition last year of a $12 billion AuM credit management business, now called Investcorp Credit Management. At the end of June, it had $22.6 billion of AuM. That organisation has about 390 people in offices in the Middle East, New York, London and Singapore.

The development is an example of the kind of M&A activity going on in the European private banking sector. Ray Soudah, chairman and founding partner of MilleniumAssociates, has in the past spoken to this publication about his expectations for the future shape of European private banking, arguing that at some stage a large Swiss firm is likely to disappear via a deal.