Inside A Secretive Swiss Bank For The World's Richest People

In its entire history, only 43 individuals - all men, all white - have risen to the rank of Pictet managing partner, creating a bond more enduring than your typical marriage.

In the mythology of private banking, Banque Pictet & Cie SA stands apart. Over the course of more than two centuries, the Swiss institution has discreetly tended to the assets of the very rich, led by a small crop of partners who form the most exclusive men-only club anywhere outside the Vatican. In its entire history, only 43 individuals - all men, all white - have risen to the rank of Pictet managing partner, creating a bond more enduring than your typical marriage. From their Geneva perch, they oversee more than 600 billion francs ($662 billion) in assets under management and a level of profitability far beyond larger, publicly-listed peers, often rewarding each of them with more than 20 million francs a year. But in recent years, an unsettling new trend crept into Pictet, cracking the facade of corporate cohesion: key employees began leaving. Over the course of 2019, a dozen long-tenured relationship managers at the wealth unit departed. Within days in September of that year, four leading bankers from the team looking after Russian clients handed in their resignations. Bankers for Scandinavia and Israel followed, putting billions in assets under management at stake. At the heart of the exodus lies a culture clash. Longtime employees were bristling at the brash style of the flood of recent hires brought on to manage the money of the ultra rich, particularly the explosive growth of new wealth in Asia that has set off an aggressive race for assets and talent with bigger rivals like UBS Group AG and HSBC Holdings Plc.