Yesterday evening after the market closed, Julius Baer sent the invitations to the postponed shareholders’ meeting. This is necessary because the dividend is now distributed in tranches.
Bear President Romeo Lacher did not hide his displeasure. “We follow the request from FINMA despite Julius Baer’s continued solid capital, funding and liquidity position,” said Lacher.
Bär could easily have held onto the planned full dividend, also thanks to a “robust performance in the first quarter”.
What Lacher expresses with this is clear: Finma, you are for nothing. But then stop.
The behavior is embarrassing. The Bär bosses, above all President Lacher and his CEO Philipp Rickenbacher, have recently received a sharp reprimand from Finma.
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They and their bankers had enabled corrupt regime people from Venezuela and bought officials of the world football association Fifa money laundering – for years and systematically.
These two cases alone would have enabled Finma to severely punish Julius Baer and those responsible.
So far the finma has refrained from doing so. One is examining proceedings against individuals, it is said in Bern. In view of the misconduct, the supervisory authority shows mildness towards current and former bear managers.
Rickenbacher and Lacher had every reason to be grateful to Finma. Instead, they start a dispute over the dividends.
Your argument: We are not a big bank, we do not have the same risk with loans.
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Here too, the bear tip tells nonsense. Remo Stoffel, the construction tycoon from the mountains, alone has a huge Lombard loan. During the crisis, Stoffel sold part of its deposited shares.
In their 2019 annual report, the Bär bosses write of ever larger loans so that their customers can go full throttle when trading on the stock exchanges.
“Loans increased by 7% to CHF 48.4 billion, of which CHF 39.5 billion Lombard loans (+ 10%) and CHF 8.9 billion mortgages (-5%),” it says.
And further: “Our customers’ confidence increased over the course of the year, which was reflected in higher transaction activity and increasing credit penetration.”
It is also about special constructs: “The credit team also offers our UHNW customers tailor-made internal solutions such as collateralised cash flow backed lending, secured with unlisted securities”.
Bär is full of credit – at least for the fact that she is a private bank that should live on commissions. The high profit share of trading shows how much Bär Bank depends on trading.
Credit locks open so that customers can trade even more: this is the bears’ secret of success.
The risks increase accordingly. The Bär advisors were sweating blood in March when the courses crashed. They had to make margin calls every minute; Customers were “executed”.
And now President Lacher wants to show the world that there is no need to save dividends and build up reserves.
The real reason for the renown towards the supervisory authority is probably another. The management of Bär-Bank thrives on bonuses. CEO Rickenbacher recently received an incredibly high compensation.
The dividends are crucial to keep it that way. If they fail or are shortened, this has a direct impact on the bonuses of the top shots.
That is why Lacher and Rickenbacher absolutely want to keep the dividends. They want their own bonus – what else.
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