By Anita Greil Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES ZURICH -(Dow Jones)- Deutsche Bank AG's (DB) Swiss private banking unit has continued to attract new assets from clients in the fourth quarter, but the overall value of managed assets has suffered from financial market turbulence, the unit's chief said Thursday.
"Net new assets continue to be positive, but the market environment is difficult - what happened in October is very massive," said Hans-Juergen Koch, chief executive of Deutsche Bank (Schweiz) AG.
Globally, Deutsche Bank's private wealth management division attracted EUR17.8 billion in new money in the nine months to Sept. 30.
The Swiss unit alone gathered 5.7 billion Swiss francs ($4.9 billion, EUR3.7 billion) during that period, and has added further assets since then, Koch said.
"October and November were good, very good, also compared to the rest of the year," he said.
The German bank plans to further grow the business and expects to hire more client advisors over the next year, it said.
Its Swiss private bank division currently employs 765 people. Invested assets amounted to EUR35 billion at the end of September.
To get closer to potential rich clients, the bank is opening a representative office in the alpine ski resort of St. Moritz. The bank hired Hanspeter Danuser, who for 30 years served as director of the town's tourism board and knows many of the rich and famous who spend vacations in the luxurious ski resort.
The bank already has established offices in Zurich, Geneva and Lugano - the financial centers of the German-, French- and Italian-speaking Swiss regions.
Deutsche Bank's Swiss private banking unit is servicing clients from Europe - excluding Germany - the Middle East and Latin America.
The bank isn't providing offshore banking services to clients from the U.S., Koch said.
U.S. residents who are inquiring about banking services are referred to Deutsche Bank's U.S. units, Koch said in response to a reporter's question.
Swiss bank UBS AG (UBS) earlier this year stopped providing banking services to U.S.-based clients out of Switzerland after it came under pressure from U.S. tax authorities who accused the bank of helping Americans avoid taxes.
Company Web site: http://www.deutschebank.com
-By Anita Greil, Dow Jones Newswires; +41 43 443 8044 ; anita.greil@dowjones.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 27, 2008 09:41 ET (14:41 GMT)

Publié le 27 novembre 2008 Copyright © 2008 Dowjones