Gonet is the small Swiss private bank that wants to grow slowly. It's not easy to go against the grain at a time when other traditional Swiss partnership banks are straining to increase their assets under management and boost profit margins, said Nicholas Gonet, director and fifth generation banquiers. "It's a big decision for a private bank, but the bigger you are the harder it is to keep clients happy. Some banks are keen to grow, but they are doing this to the detriment of their clients," said Gonet, 33. Gonet & Cie prides itself in a long tradition of prudence rooted in being a family-owned bank. It was founded in 1845 by Louis Abraham Gonet, who created it as a trading house that issued promissory notes for cargoes shipped between the Swiss and French sides of Lake Geneva. It is this tradition of prudence and old-fashioned capital preservation that has helped the Geneva bank retain a loyal clientele, many in the second or third generation, but which recently--albeit briefly--upset some younger, new money clients. Over the last 30 years senior partner Pierre Gonet, 70, built up an international presence for the bank as Gonet International and Gonet Bank & Trust in the Bahamas and increased assets under management to and from undisclosed figures. As a traditional partnership the partners have invested their personal fortunes in the bank and take unlimited liability; Gonet & Cie is under no obligation to disclose this. It is smaller than many of its rivals, with between SFr 2.5bn and SFr 3bn in assets and a staff of 30. Pierre Gonet took a more cautious approach that other market players anticipating the dangers associated with a record bull market during the tech boom of the late 1990s. "He has been here for the last 40 years, has a more prudent approach and didn't want to invest a lot in technology. We had a really good performance in 1996 to 1997 because the Swiss market was exceptional but it was more difficult in 1998 and 1999," Nicolas Gonet told Private Client Management. "I had some clients who left the bank, they said they preferred to invest themselves. Some of them invested with discount brokerages and lost a lot of money and some of them came back and told us we were right," he said. The two partners have since struck a balance between the needs of the older generation, old money clients. These tend to be served by his father and second partner, James Crot, 66, while Nicholas Gonet tends to take on the younger, new money, risk happier clients, some of whom are the children of other long-standing clients. Usually half client portfolios are in invested equities and the rest in bonds. At present about 20 per cent is held in cash, waiting for the right market conditions to buy equities again. About five per cent of his client portfolios are in alternative investments, mainly hedge funds, a portion that may rise to as much as 20 per cent, unlike the majority of portfolios managed the bank. "I think this is a good product, a good diversification - that is my vision, though perhaps not that of the bank as a whole," said Gonet, who will in coming months become its third fully-fledged partner. About half the clients are from Switzerland, the rest from France, Italy, Belgium and Spain, for whom the bank creates individually tailored portfolios. The minimum investment is about SFr100,000, although entrepreneurs with potential may also become clients. The bank also offers a wide range of services and products including a few in-house funds, mainly for smaller clients, while 95 per cent of investment instruments are third party. For families with between SFr1m and SFr10m, Gonet offers family office services including advice and assistance with fiscal, inheritance issues, property, creating trusts and foundations, finding schools and universities in addition to asset management. "We provide this, and always have done, for clients. It is a service you could not easily get anywhere else because the big banks with family offices focus on really big clients," he said. The bank generally likes to keep a low profile, although in 1996 it created a web site with and a history of the firm. "We don't market or advertise, but accept clients on referral. Some find this strange, others are amazed at how old our office is," he said, referring to the elegant, if not slightly fraying-at-the-edges premises in Geneva's banking quarter on that have housed Gonet & Cie for the last 100 years.