Julius Baer’s assets under management reached the 200 billion Swiss franc threshold for the first time, as Switzerland’s largest private bank presses ahead with the integration of the Merrill Lynch businesses it bought from Bank of America.

In 2012, the bank’s assets under management swelled to SFr189 billion, up SFr19 billion on a year earlier, helped by a recovery in asset classes, such as equities, and SFr9.7 billion of net new money – the bulk of which came from markets such as Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Russia.

On February 1st, Julius Baer added another SFr11 billion of assets after it took control of the Geneva-based operations of Merrill Lynch Bank Suisse.

“We remained well in favour with clients in all our markets in 2012,” said Boris Collardi, chief executive. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2013)