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Prince Sturdza Takes Banque Baring Brothers Independent
Prince Eric Sturdza is to buy the remaining 70 per cent of the shares in Banque Baring Brothers from the ING Group. The chief executive of t...
Prince Eric Sturdza is to buy the remaining 70 per cent of the shares in Banque Baring Brothers from the ING Group. The chief executive of the Geneva-based private bank currently controls 30 per cent of the bank’s shares. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. In a statement, ING, which inherited 70 per cent of the bank when it bought the Barings Group in 1995, said: “ING Private Banking will continue to focus on expanding its business in Switzerland through ING Bank (Switzerland).” Based in Geneva, ING Bank (Switzerland) currently has five other offices in Switzerland, including Zurich, Basel and Lugano. In 2004, the bank reported a net profit of SFr47.5 million ($38.3 million), a 1.4 per cent rise on 2000. Total assets at the bank were around SFr11.3 billion, which includes deposits and assets under management. Banque Barings Brothers has around SFr2.5 billion of assets under management. Prince Sturdza, whose family is connected to a past Romanian monarchy and would have a claim on the throne if the monarchy was revived in the country, is believed to have been in talks with ING for some time to buy the Dutch bank out. The sale of ING’s share in Banque Barings Brothers also raises the question about the future of the Wernlin Directory; produced by long-term BBB manager Gunter Woernle, and viewed as the industry bible for Swiss private banking. Speculation in Geneva suggests he might be looking at selling the directory given recent developments and his age. Separately, Prince Sturdza has a keen interest in Morgan sports cars and is the only man to have an entirely new Morgan sports car made for him, called the Aeromax. The car apparently cost more than £100,000 to build and is named after Charles Morgan’s son Maximus, who is Prince Sturdza’s godson. Prince Sturdza’s elder brother, Prince Dimitrie Sturdza, potentially the one-day King of Romania, runs the highly successful Swiss cosmetic company, Deese.
