Page 4 - Maerki Baumann & Co. AG | Annual Report 2021

recent financial year. For one thing, we were able to increase our assets under management to more than CHF 10 billion – for the first time in the long history of our private bank. This positive development was driven by both good asset performance and CHF 934 million in net new money. By expediently building up our crypto centre of competence we succeeded in attracting new – and for the most part quite young – clients. We also expanded our client base further through our presence in the German market. A particularly pleasing aspect for me is that, in addition to having been privileged to look after many of our clients for decades, we are now also increasingly managing the assets of their descendants. Here too, our strengthened digital offering has clearly proved a crucial factor. All of these expansion steps were only possible because our bank continues to have a very robust capital base. Our BIS tier 1 ratio of more than 27% remains more than double the regulatory minimum. We have there- fore maintained a strong financial foundation on which to generate future growth, as well as invest further in our advisory offering and modern technologies. Another achievement that I should mention at this point is that we managed to increase net profit in the 2021 financial year strongly to CHF 7.7 million. Remaining attuned to unfolding developments – this basic attitude will shape our work in the current year too. 2022 will be another year with no shortage of challenges. Quite clearly the pandemic is still with us. Despite very high case numbers, including in Switzerland, it appears from today’s standpoint that we will be spared the disas- ter of our healthcare system being overwhelmed. How- ever, no one can say with confidence whether that will remain the case for the next few months, or whether or not another new wave sparked by yet another new muta- tion of the virus will head our way in the autumn. That said, we have learned to live with coronavirus, and have good cause to hope that we will once again have our freedoms restored to us in many areas of life. We obviously also face other challenges, such as the development of the economy and the evolution of senti- ment in the markets that are so crucial to our business. This is an area in which geopolitical developments – and most seriously of all the Ukraine conflict – will have repercussions. But with our proven modular investment solutions, we have laid the basis in recent years for smoothing out even significant market fluctuations for our investors. As a private bank, we are and remain – unlike listed financial companies – overwhelmingly com- mitted to our clients above all other stakeholders, par- ticularly in difficult times. Let me conclude with a few reflections on the politi- cal parameters that are obviously so important to the financial world. The state took on a particularly active 4 Maerki Baumann & Co. AG