ZURICH, Nov 20 (Reuters) - EFG International is looking at potential acquisitions, Chief Executive Giorgio Pradelli said on Wednesday, with the Swiss private bank on course to beat last year's record profit.
The bank made a net profit "in excess" of 260 million Swiss francs ($294 million) in the first 10 months of 2024, compared with 303.2 million francs for the whole of 2023, EFG said.
"We are ahead of budget and we are on track to beat the record result of last year," Pradelli told reporters.
The bank would consider acquisitions and was working with investment banks on potential targets, he added.
"Our default growth option is organic growth but we would like also to grow through acquisitions," Pradelli said.
The market was opening up, with more transactions taking place.
"Some of our competitors have already acted both in Switzerland but also in the UK and one of our competitors acquired also business in Australia," Pradelli said.
"So we see that globally the M&A market is more fluid. We are looking, we work with several investment banks."
EFG's criteria for takeovers included targets in areas where it was already active, in order to achieve cost savings, while a cultural fit was also important.
Still, Pradelli said there was nothing imminent to disclose.
In its trading update, EFG said it was seeing strong cash inflows, with net new assets of 7.4 billion francs during the period, amounting to an annualised growth rate of 6.3%.
Assets under management rose to 159 billion francs at the end of October, up from 142.2 billion francs at the end of 2023.
Pradelli said client activity continued in November, helped by volatility in financial markets.
"When there is a volatility in the markets, trading activity goes up," he said.
($1 = 0.8838 Swiss francs)
Reporting by John Revill and Oliver Hirt, Editing by Miranda Murray and Elaine Hardcastle
Source: Reuters