A deal would represent a chance for Intesa to push deeper into the Swiss private banking and wealth space, which has been the focus for consolidation in recent years.

Intesa Sanpaolo and Geneva-based Bank REYL were keeping tight-lipped on a media report that the Italian banking group was poised to buy the Swiss firm.

Sanpaolo, which is based in Turin, is reportedly (source: finews.ch) about to make a deal that would leave REYL’s six partners with slightly more than 30 per cent of a stake in the bank. The partners are François Reyl, Pasha Bakhtiar, Nicolas Duchêne, Thomas Fontaine, Christian Fringhian, and Lorenzo Rocco di Torrepadula.

Spokespersons for both institutions declined to comment to WealthBriefing about the matter. 

This news service understands that an announcement could be made within days.

A deal would represent a chance for Intesa to push deeper into the Swiss private banking and wealth space, which has been the focus for consolidation in recent years. There are 246 banks in the Alpine state, a decline from more than 300 a decade ago, according to the Swiss Bankers Association. 

Sanpaolo already operates the Intesa Sanpaolo Private Bank Suisse Morval business, founded by the Zanon Valgiurata family, based in Geneva with offices in Lugano, London, Monaco, Bahrain, the Cayman Islands, Buenos Aires and Montevideo. The business traces its foundation back to 1974 and was incorporated into Fideuram in 2018. Fideuram, which is based in Milan, is an affiliate of the ISP Group, packaging together all of ISP Group’s private banking activities. Fideuram had 5,801 private bankers and SFr259 billion of assets under management at the end of June this year. The Morval business had SFr5.1 billion as at the end of 2019.