Julius Bär Group is a Swiss banking firm which is the parent company of Bank Julius Bär, a traditional private bank

Private bank

Private banks are banks that are not incorporated. A private bank is owned by either an individual or a general partner with limited partner...

 based in Zurich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

, Switzerland. The firm dates itself back to the year 1890, when an exchange office was founded by Ludwig Hirschhorn und Theodor Grob. Joseph Michael Uhl and Julius Bär joined in 1896, when Theodor Grob left. And it was in 1901, when Julius Bär acquired the bank. The group manages substantial asset

Asset

In financial accounting, assets are economic resources. Anything tangible or intangible that is capable of being owned or controlled to produce value and that is held to have positive economic value is considered an asset...

s for private and institutional clients from all over the world. The firm's services consist mainly of asset management, wealth management

Wealth management

Wealth management is an investment advisory discipline that incorporates financial planning, investment portfolio management and a number of aggregated financial services...

 and investment

Investment

Investment has different meanings in finance and economics. Finance investment is putting money into something with the expectation of gain, that upon thorough analysis, has a high degree of security for the principal amount, as well as security of return, within an expected period of time...

 consultancy

Consultant

A consultant is a professional who provides professional or expert advice in a particular area such as management, accountancy, the environment, entertainment, technology, law , human resources, marketing, emergency management, food production, medicine, finance, life management, economics, public...

, investment funds for private and institutional investors as well as securities and foreign exchange trading.

Apart from its head offices in Switzerland, the bank has offices in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, Frankfurt, Milan, Dubai

Dubai

Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...

, Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, Grand Cayman

Grand Cayman

Grand Cayman is the largest of the three Cayman Islands and the location of the nation's capital, George Town. In relation to the other two Cayman Islands, it is approximately 75 miles southwest of Little Cayman and 90 miles southwest of Cayman Brac.-Geography:Grand Cayman encompasses 76% of...

, New York, Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

, and Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

.

In September 2005, Julius Bär acquired the independent private banks Ferrier Lullin, Ehinger & Armand von Ernst, Banco di Lugano, and the asset management house Global Asset Management

Global Asset Management

GAM Holding AG is an independent asset management business borne out of the successful separation of Julius Baer in September 2009 and is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange, with a strong global presence, employing over 1,000 staff in 11 countries....

 (GAM) from the Swiss banking giant UBS AG

UBS AG

UBS AG is a Swiss global financial services company headquartered in Basel and Zürich, Switzerland, which provides investment banking, asset management, and wealth management services for private, corporate, and institutional clients worldwide, as well as retail clients in Switzerland...

, to become one of the largest independent wealth management

Wealth management

Wealth management is an investment advisory discipline that incorporates financial planning, investment portfolio management and a number of aggregated financial services...

 firms in Switzerland. UBS acquired almost 21% of Baer's shares as part of the deal, but sold off its stake in May 2007 to fund a share buyback

Share repurchase

Stock repurchase is the reacquisition by a company of its own stock. In some countries, including the U.S. and the UK, a corporation can repurchase its own stock by distributing cash to existing shareholders in exchange for a fraction of the company's outstanding equity; that is, cash is exchanged...

. GAM was demerged

Demerger

Demerger is a form of corporate restructuring in which the an entity's business operations are segregated into one or more components. It is the converse of a merger or acquisition....

 as a separate company in October 2009. The companies of the group are consolidated within Julius Bär Gruppe AG, whose shares are listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange.

Alex Widmer

Alex Widmer

Alex W. Widmer was a Swiss banker who had been the chief executive officer of the Julius Baer Group, one of the world's largest providers of private banking services....

, the chief executive of Bank Julius Baer, died suddenly on December 4, 2008. News reports cited sources indicating the death was a suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

. Hans de Gier, the former chief of Julius Baer Group, assumed Widmer's responsibilities for the interim.

On January 16, 2011, former Julius Baer employee Rudolf Elmer

Rudolf Elmer

Rudolf Elmer is a former employee of Swiss bank Julius Bär. He worked for the bank for close to two decades, the last position being overseeing the Caribbean operations of the bank for eight years until his dismissal in 2002...

 announced that he would be handing over to Wikileaks

Wikileaks

WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...

bank account details of individuals and corporations holding offshore accounts that may indicate massive tax evasion.