A newly-slimmed Banque Cramer wants to increase its focus on the wealthy in Eastern Europe and Latin America. It is appointing a new private banking head to underscore its ambitions in Russia.
After the Geneva-based wealth manager's private banking boss and stand-in CEO Stephan Keiser left for Gonet, Cramer is hiring André Mankowsky (pictured below), who was most recently responsible for emerging markets at Société Générale's Swiss private bank, it said in a statement on Monday.
Mankowsky is to lead an expansion with the wealthy of Russia, where Banque Cramer opened an office in 2018. The wealth manager also wants to target Eastern Europe and Latin America, it said.
The hire follows a year of trimming itself fit for growth for the Swiss bank, owned by investment firm Norinvest. Cramer lowered its spending by six percent, while hiking its revenue three percent to nearly 40 million Swiss francs ($44.4 million). This led its profit to surge to 5.3 million francs, from a paltry break-even in 2019.
Cramer's main shareholder Massimo Esposito has taken over as chairman following the exit of Manuel Leuthold earlier this year for Geneva's cantonal bank. Besides Mankowsky, Cramer's top management is made up of operating chief Marc-Henri Balma and finance chief Stéphane Poulin. The bank currently doesn't have a CEO according to its organizational chart.
