At the beginning of 2025, Stefan Bollinger took over the position of CEO at Julius Bär. Over the subsequent 13 months, the top executive repositioned the private bank. The focus was on cleaning up legacy issues, reducing risks, cutting costs, and identifying new growth opportunities. Unsurprisingly, this "clean-up" is reflected in the Zurich-based wealth manager's 2025 results: adjusted group profit fell by 16% to CHF 877.8 million. Nevertheless, Julius Bär performed better than expected. Analysts had forecast an adjusted profit of CHF 823 million on average. A key burden proved to be losses related to the collapse of the Austrian real estate group Signa. Julius Bär booked net credit loss provisions of CHF 213 million for 2025. In addition, the sale of the Brazilian business weighed on earnings.
“All in all, 2025 was a successful transition year, and we are now well positioned to achieve our mid-term targets,” Stefan Bollinger commented on the latest results. Julius Bär reached a new record in assets under management (AuM). Assets under management increased by just under 5% to CHF 521 billion over the past year. The company benefited from rising equity markets as well as solid net new money inflows. In total, Julius Bär attracted CHF 14.4 billion in 2025, 2.9% more than in the previous year. According to a media release, inflows mainly came from key markets in Asia, Western Europe and the Middle East. The increased focus on lower-risk client portfolios likely dampened growth, as management had originally targeted a 3% increase in net inflows. “We are now fully focused on achieving profitable growth and driving forward our strategic transformation,” the CEO said, looking ahead.
In June 2025, Bollinger presented a strategy update including mid-term targets. By 2028, he aims to achieve net new money growth of 4 to 5%. While Julius Bär still needs to gain momentum in this area, the targeted cost/income ratio of below 67% is within reach. In 2025, the ratio of expenses to income stood at 67.6%. The adjusted return on CET1 capital (RoCET1) is expected to exceed 30% over the 2026–2028 cycle. Excluding credit losses, this profitability metric reached 28% in the past year. In the stock market, the results and the confirmed targets were received positively, albeit with some delay. After a weak start to the week, Julius Bär shares turned higher. While the SMIM stock managed to break above the horizontal resistance at CHF 65, the next technical hurdle already awaits in the CHF 67/68 range.
With the new soft-callable barrier reverse convertible, an attractive return is possible even if Julius Bär remains in a broader sideways trend. Investors receive a coupon payment of 8.20% p.a., regardless of further price developments. The nominal amount offers partial capital protection: as long as the underlying does not fall to or below the barrier of 64% of the initial level, Leonteq will repay the full capital at maturity. If this scenario does not materialise, redemption would be linked to the price performance of Julius Bär shares. The mid-cap stock is also of interest to traders, who can take short-term positions using leveraged products. Leonteq trades a total of more than 120 Mini-Futures, Warrants and Knock-Out Warrants on Julius Bär on SIX Swiss Exchange and BX Swiss. These include both long products, or calls, as well as shorts (puts).
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