Barclays chews over substantial wealth management acquisition
BARCLAYS is mulling over the acquisition of a substantial wealth management business to boost its global private banking presence, the firm revealed yesterday.
Gerard Aquilina, the vice-chairman of the group’s private banking arm Barclays Wealth, said the bank would be prepared to stump up for a business at least the size of 120-year-old Swiss firm Julius Baer in a “major transformational buy”, to achieve its target of ranking in the top five private banks in the world.
Speaking at the Reuters Global Wealth Management Summit in Geneva, Aquilina added that Barclays would be highly selective in its choice of acquisition target.
“Being big for the sake of being big is not necessarily a good philosophy to enhance shareholder value,” he said.
Barclays Wealth currently manages £145bn of assets, while JP Morgan – the world’s fifth-largest wealth manager – has $600bn (£377.2bn) of assets under management.
Barclays has taken a major bet on private banking in the hope that synergies with other units such as investment banking will give it a competitive edge in an industry battered by rocky markets.