Private bank to offer wealth and investment services in Middle Eastern hub. Swiss private bank Mirabaud & Cie plans to establish a wealth and asset management firm in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Mirabaud (Middle East) Limited will work with local, Swiss and Singaporean banks on client-account deposits.

"This operation is fully in line with our expansion strategy: recruiting asset managers with client portfolios, who are capable of sharing our values of excellence and independence," says Yves Mirabaud, Geneva-based Mirabaud's managing partner. "We are looking to become a prominent player in the Middle East, notably by promoting a global financial service and open architecture."

Future tense

Twenty-year international banking veteran Gilles Rollet will manage the Dubai firm. He was mostly recently head of ABN Amro's Dubai-based private bank. He has also worked at Goldman Sachs.

Mirabaud's Dubai firm will give its Middle Eastern clients "access to a level of transparency, flexibility and performance that was previously confined to investors linked to a family office or an independent asset manager operating in Switzerland," according to Rollet.

The Middle East saw its population of U.S.-dollar millionaires grow by 9.8% to around 300,000 in 2005, according to most recent edition of Capgemini's World Wealth Report. Total assets held by Middle East-based millionaires -- many based in the oil-rich Gulf states -- increased 19.7% to about $1.2 trillion.

Mirabaud (Middle East) will provide clients performance-based discretionary management and advisory services across a range of financial products. It will also serve as a window for European investors looking to the Middle East and India.

Mirabaud, which is 188 years old, manages about $18 billion in assets. -FWR

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