Dealmakers like Jean-François Lagassé  (pictured below) are the oil that lubricates the current consolidation in the Swiss private banking sector. There’s hardly been a takeover in recent years that Lagasse hasn’t been involved in or aware of. In 2008 he joined Deloitte in Switzerland as a partner, and for the past four years has led the corporate finance team.

And while his colleagues are on holiday, he’s had his hands full at Deloitte with a burgeoning pipeline of potential deals. He identifies three trends which are driving transactions in the sector, in an interview with finews.com.

A fair representative for these trends are the deals involving the Geneva private bank Gonet and UBP, as well as banking giant UBS. These trends are:

1. Gonet and Mourgue d’Algue: Search for Scale

The two old-guard Genevan banks merged in early July, although the deal was more a takeover by Gonet. The merger has brought a combined 5 billion Swiss francs ($5 billion) in assets onto the scale, thus better equipping it for the upcoming challenges.

Further such deals are likely in the coming 18 months, according to Lagassé. «We are seeing smaller private banks looking at strategic options which would entail a sale or fusion», the Deloitte expert said.

Such moves are increasingly attractive given the implementation of the automatic exchange of information rules which make higher sale prices possible.

Lagassé however remains tight-lipped on details of upcoming deals. According to another private bank source however institutes like Banque Cramer in Geneva, and die Basler Sallfort Private Bank are weighing such options. The two banks didn’t reply to finews.com questions.