Baer Family Oust CEO and Appoint ex-Credit Suisse Head

Contributing Editor

28 June 2005

Julius Baer has sacked Walter Knabenhans as chief executive and appointed the ex-Credit Suisse head of private banking Alex Widmer as his replacement. The Zurich-based bank has also appointed Thomas Meier as the new head of private banking for the group. He was previously at Deutsche Bank. The move comes as Raymond Baer, the executive chairman of the bank, announced that the Baer family “has regrouped and formed a new shareholders’ pool”. Earlier this year Julius Baer introduced a one-share structure, which analysts saw at the time as a means of lessening the influence of the Baer family. But there now appears to be some doubt about this. Raymond Baer said in a statement: "This new shareholders' agreement underscores the family's ongoing commitment to the group and makes it possible to include additional family-owned shares when the time is right. As a result, our biggest institutional shareholders and the new family pool currently each own between approximately 5 and 10 per cent of the shares." The ousting of Mr Knabenhans, who will stay on until the end of the year, shows the influence of the Baer family is still very much in control, say analysts. The new head, Mr Widmer, was himself pushed out of a senior role at Credit Suisse last year as a result of Oswald Gruebel’s — the bank’s chief executive — restructuring efforts.