Julius Baer has appointed Marco Bless head of its Mannheim branch in Germany.

Julius Baer has appointed Marco Bless as head of its Mannheim branch in Germany.

The Swiss private bank opened the branch in the south-western German city last October as part of plans to grow its presence in the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region. The bank now has eight branches in Germany - the other locations being Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Kiel, Munich, Stuttgart and Würzburg.

“We are delighted that Marco Bless is now responsible for the development and business activities of our Mannheim branch”, said Heiko Schlag, chief executive of Bank Julius Baer Europe AG. “We firmly believe that as someone who has worked in the region for a long time and knows the area and the people well, he is ideally qualified to lead this branch and its seasoned team of experts to success.”

Outside of Germany the bank has been busy integrating Merrill Lynch’s international wealth management business, which it bought from Bank of America over a year ago.

It announced that it has completed the transfer in Ireland, following on from successful integrations in Lebanon, Bahrain and the UAE last December. The new Irish business of Julius Baer will be run as a branch of Julius Baer International Limited based in London. The offices will be located in Central Park, Leopardstown, Dublin.

The integration phase for Merrill's wealth management arm was launched in February 2013 and is expected to reach completion in the first quarter of 2015. It will increase Julius Baer's presence to more than 25 countries and 50 locations.

Julius Baer’s total client assets amounted to SFr348 billion ($396 billion) at the end of 2013, including SFr254 billion of assets under management.