Ilan Hayim, chairman of Swiss lender Bank J. Safra Sarasin AG, said the bank has no problem acquiring "large" entities after edging out local medium-sized peers, Bloomberg News reported.
The bank reportedly has been given the greenlight by owner Joseph Safra for big deals, with Hayim saying: "For an entity with assets under management of CHF50 billion to CHF100 billion — it's not a financial issue."
The JS International Holdings Ltd. unit is considering many potential deals, putting emphasis on risk profile and staff quality to avoid complicating existing assets, the chairman reportedly said. However, Hayim noted that a large buy is "not an obsession" and that the bank is pleased with its current growth, Bloomberg said.
According to rankings by Scorpio Partnership, a CHF100 billion asset increase would lift Safra's banking business, which includes U.S. and Brazilian operations, to the global top 15 private banks from No. 20, Bloomberg wrote. It would overtake the businesses of HSBC Holdings Plc and Deutsche Bank AG and would be slightly behind Julius Bär Ltd., it added.
In 2015, the bank reportedly acquired Morgan Stanley's Swiss private bank followed by Credit Suisse Group AG's private banking operations in Monaco and Gibraltar a year after. Hayim also noted that the bank makes an average of one acquisition a year, with the bank reporting an AUM increase to CHF170 billion, overtaking Vontobel Holding AG and Lombard Odier.
