Julius Baer CEO’s First Strategy Moves Marred by Benko Hangover

Julius Baer Group Ltd. last month brought in Stefan Bollinger to draw a line under painful losses caused by loans to a collapsed real estate conglomerate. But it was that past that ruined the new chief executive officer’s presentation of his first strategic moves.

Shares dropped as much 14.6% on Monday after the country’s financial watchdog Finma said it had opened an enforcement procedure against the lender. The action is linked to control failures exposed by the unraveling of Rene Benko’s Signa real estate empire in late 2023, which saddled the bank with 586 million Swiss francs ($640 million) ...