Shares of Swiss bank Julius Baer fell nearly 9% on Friday morning, May 22, after signaling that the recovery in attracting new clients had lost momentum at the start of the year. The drop erased the gains accumulated by the stock in 2026 and showed that, for investors, the private bank's recovery after the Signa case is still far from being a resolved story.
The bank reported net inflows below market expectations. According to Reuters , analysts had projected net inflows of 5.7 billion Swiss francs in the first four months of the year, almost double the 3 billion Swiss francs delivered by Julius Baer, equivalent to US$3.81 billion.
The figure represents an annualized growth of 1.7%, down from 2.7% recorded in the second half of last year.
In a conversation with analysts, CEO Stefan Bollinger stated that the bank had to reduce risky assets in its client portfolio to a "slightly greater" extent than expected.
The slowdown was attributed to three factors: the bank's new risk and compliance approach, uncertainties related to the war in the Middle East, and a pause in clients' appetite for taking on debt to invest.
The negative market reaction came even with positive signs in other indicators. Julius Baer's assets under management reached 528 billion Swiss francs at the end of April, a 1% increase since the beginning of the year.
The bank also stated that it expects net income in the first half of the year to be substantially higher than that recorded in the same period of the previous year, benefiting from strong performance at the start of the year and the absence of significant extraordinary effects.
But for investors, the key issue was the loss of momentum in new inflows. Julius Baer itself acknowledged that customer fundraising weakened significantly in April, after a more robust start to the year. The bank also stated that it does not expect a return to the same pace in the coming months.
The negative market outlook stems from the institution's recent history. Julius Baer has been trying to reduce the risk in its client portfolio after the collapse of the Austrian real estate developer Signa Holding, which led the group to record loan losses and revise its credit portfolio.
The crisis also triggered significant changes in the bank's structure. Stefan Bollinger, formerly of Goldman Sachs, took over the helm at the beginning of last year, and since then, Julius Baer has been promoting a reorganization in its leadership and risk and compliance framework.
The challenge is to do this without excessively compromising growth in an area where the inflow of new money is one of the main indicators of a business's health.
This global reorganization movement has also reached Brazil. As reported by NeoFeed , Julius Baer sold its local wealth management operation to BTG Pactual for R$ 615 million in January 2025, in a transaction that marked the Swiss bank's exit from the Brazilian domestic market and involved R$ 61 billion under management.
And the result showed pressure on the strategy presented by Bollinger to rebuild Julius Baer after the losses linked to Signa. The bank maintains its goal of increasing net new money growth to a range of 4% to 5% by 2028, but now expects the annualized rate for 2026 to be below the 2.9% recorded in 2025.
On the Vienna stock exchange, the private bank's stock is up 1.6% this year. Julius Baer's market capitalization is US$16.6 billion.
