Edgar de Picciotto

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Edgar de Picciotto (born October 1929 in Beirut ; † March 13, 2016 ) was a Lebanese - Swiss private banker . In the Swiss financial center he invested very successfully in alternative investments, namely in hedge funds , from the 1970s onwards, and was considered a "hedge fund pioneer". He was way ahead of his time, it helped him to a private fortune of between two and three billion francs.

Life

Edgar de Picciotto was born into a Sephardic family in Beirut in 1929 . The family history of the de Picciotto goes back to the age of the great discoveries of Portugal . He first studied engineering in France before he and his family fled from Beirut via Italy to Switzerland in the 1950s because of the anti-Jewish atmosphere. In 1955 he came to Geneva , where he "married into the small Geneva bank Société Bancaire de Genève ". He was naturalized in 1972 in Vandœuvres . In 1969 he founded the Compagnie de Banque et d'Investissements (CBI) in Geneva with the private banker Nicolas J. Bär from Zurich . His gold investments in the run-up to the “ Nixon Shock ” of July 15, 1971 made him as legendary as his early decision to invest in hedge funds.

In 1990 the CBI took over the much larger TDB-American Express Bank , which later became the Union Bancaire Privée (UBP). Further takeovers followed, for example Cambio & Valoren Bank (1993), Nordfinanzbank (1995), and Zürich Discount Bank, Trust Company (2002). De Picciotto became Chairman of the Board of Directors and the Board Committee of UBP.

In 2009, at the age of 80, he took over the management of the bank again after UBP suffered a severe loss of reputation in the maelstrom of the US fraudster Bernard Madoff and got into financial difficulties under the leadership of his sons and nephew Michael de Picciotto. Through his courageous intervention in operational business, de Picciotto managed to get the bank back on the road to success. In the summer of 2011, he bought the Swiss offshoot of the Dutch ABN AMRO with 11 billion euros in customer assets for a secret sum . According to the US authorities, de Picciotto took on an additional 1282 tax evaders in his company. In 2012 he took over the hedge fund company Nexar Capital Group. In the spring of 2015, UBP caused a sensation when it took over the international private banking business of the British Coutts International (Growth or Die Dilemma). An asset management company was opened in Shanghai .

The Union Bancaire Privée resolved the tax dispute with the USA with a fine of $ 188 million and thus escaped prosecution.

He was known as the « doyen of the Geneva banking scene». Edgar de Picciotto died on March 13, 2016 at the age of 86 after a long illness. His son, Guy de Picciotto, took over the management of the bank.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hedge Fund Pioneer Edgar De Picciotto Is A Billionaire. In: Forbes.com. Retrieved March 17, 2016 .
  2. ↑ a b Edgar de Picciotto, Hedge-Fund Pioneer, Dies at Age of 86 (English)
  3. ^ UBP founder Edgar de Picciotto has passed away , finews.ch, March 14, 2016
  4. ↑ Archive link ( Memento from October 11, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ a b The self-made man. , Cash , January 5, 1990.
  6. ↑ Forbes Magazine . Volume 146, p. 252.
  7. ^ A b c Gian Trepp : Swiss Connection. Unionsverlag, Zurich 1996, ISBN 3-293-00205-6 , p. 63.
  8. ↑ Entry UNION BANCAIRE PRIVEE, UBP SA (UNITED PRIVATE BANK, UBP LTD) , Commercial Register of the Canton of Geneva, accessed on January 13, 2012.
  9. ^ Edgar de Picciotto , UBP website, accessed January 13, 2012.
  10. ↑ The old man and the more (PDF file; 567 kB), Handelszeitung , August 25, 2011
  11. ↑ Madoff Dealings Tarnish a private Swiss bank , The New York Times, December 23, 2008
  12. ↑ Geneva-based private bank to help sneaks off to Singapore , tagesanzeiger.ch, March 6, 2013
  13. ↑ a b Juicy buses for the Geneva bank of the “Wolf of Wall Street” , January 7, 2016
  14. ↑ The Swiss private bank Union Bancaire Privée (UBP) takes over the hedge fund company Nexar Capital Group , private-banking-magazin.de, March 1, 2012
  15. ↑ http://www.bilanz.ch/300-Reichste-live?rid=2855&page=list
  16. ↑ UBP: Edgar de Picciotto back at the helm , finews.ch, March 23, 2009, accessed January 13, 2012.
personal data
SURNAME Picciotto, Edgar de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Lebanese-Swiss banker
DATE OF BIRTH October 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Beirut
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 2016