One of Europe’s largest pure-play private banks controlled by members of Qatar’s ruling Al Thani family is accelerating a hiring drive in Europe after rebounding from years of losses.
Quintet Private Bank is in discussions with more than 20 private bankers to join the Luxembourg-based wealth firm, CEO Chris Allen said in an interview. The recruitment talks follow the onboarding of several senior executives last year from rivals including Bank J. Safra Sarasin and Union Bancaire Privée. The firm currently has about 265 bankers and 170 investment professionals, according to its website.
“We’re pretty active,” said Allen, a British native and 15-year HSBC Holdings PLC veteran. “There’s quite a large number of live conversations.”
Quintet, founded in 1949 and formerly known as KBL, this week reported total group income of €571.8 million ($616 million) last year, with a 45% surge in profits to €68 million. It was the firm’s third profitable year in a row after losses from 2019 through 2021, when it announced the closing of its Swiss business that had 87 employees and €1.85 billion in assets under management.
Precision Capital, a holding company for members of the Al Thani family, controls Quintet and has injected more than €350 million of capital into the private bank since acquiring it in 2012 for about €1 billion. The Quintet group includes the UK’s Brown Shipley and Germany’s Merck Finck along with namesake entities in other European nations as part of its services for rich families, foundations and external asset managers.
Deepening presence
Quintet is now exploring ways to deepen its presence in the markets it covers across 50 cities in Europe, including London, Amsterdam and Copenhagen, Allen said. Total client assets stood at €100.6 billion at the end of 2024, an increase of 9.3% from 12 months earlier.
“It’s about finding the right type of people,” said Allen, 55, who previously was HSBC’s head of global private banking for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “If we find them, we’ll hire them.”
Allen joined Quintet in 2022 after a turbulent period for the private bank’s leadership after the death of a previous CEO Jurg Zeltner two years earlier. Another ex-HSBC executive, Christine Lynch, joined as group chief risk officer last year, while Stéphane Pardini started as head of wealth management for Luxembourg in November after holding a senior role at Bank J. Safra Sarasin, shortly after Quintet recruited a UBP team to cover Finland.
Former Coutts CEO Rory Tapner recently stepped down as Quintet’s chairman after almost five years in the role, leaving a gap so far this year in the firm’s top management. But Allen signaled that won’t be the case for much longer.
A new chair has been identified, Allen said, declining to name the individual, citing regulatory restrictions. “We hope and expect it to be a seamless transition from where Rory left us,” he said.