The same is true in the Americas: EFG has a flourishing presence in Miami and locations from Panama to Chile. The bank has already moved into a more aggressive growth mode in Latin America, hiring Citibank’s Marcelo Coscarelli last year.

Local Rainmakers

Coscarelli worked with the rich and ultra-rich for the last five years, but also has American experience: he was operating chief at Itau in Miami prior to the American bank. The hope is that he is the man to bolster EFG’s 17.1 billion Swiss francs in Latin American assets.

Why are the local rainmakers and talent recruiters key? Because neither of EFG's two top executives – chairman John Williamson and new Chief Executive Giorgio Pradelli (pictured below) – made their mark as client-facing bankers.

Williamson worked his way up at Coutts to operating chief, while Pradelli made his name as a financier and restructurer at Greece's EFG. In short, neither of them has the influence in private banker circles to pull in the new recruits that EFG’s talent grinder relies on to deliver profits.

Strange Bedfellows

Observers also note that EFG’s two major shareholders, the Latsis family and BTG Pactual, have settled into an uneasy alliance to control nearly three-quarters of the bank. The Brazilian investment bank is only in because of the BSI cash-and-stock deal. Meanwhile the Latsis family was close to selling to Julius Baer two years ago, a luckless deal with effectively cost Williamson his job as CEO.

With EFG’s synergy play from BSI coming to an end, investors will be watching CEO Pradelli closely. For a bank with 147.5 billion francs in assets, 3,400 staff is ambitious. Pradelli has to show he can kickstart the bank’s next phase of growth, and not just keep EFG alive until the next takeover bid.