Francesco Grosoli has spent more than two decades building wealth-management businesses in one of the world’s hot spots for the super-rich, and he isn’t finished yet.
The head of Mediobanca SpA’s wealth unit in Monaco is exploring potential acquisitions, including those that would expand the firm’s operations beyond the Mediterranean city-state famed for its casinos, glitzy events and low taxes.
“I would be lying if I said that we are not looking,” Grosoli, chief executive officer of CMB Monaco, said about the bank’s deal-making plans. “But the market is tough. You need to find the right target and of course at the right price.”
CMB, which oversees about 16 billion euros ($15.6 billion) across its wealth- and asset-management divisions, more than doubled its loan book in the past decade to 2.3 billion euros at the end of 2021. Much of that lending went to rich individuals looking to acquire luxury properties in Monaco, where more than half of the 39,500 residents are millionaires and don’t typically face taxes on income or capital gains.
To expand further, CMB has explored acquisitions in London and Switzerland, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified as the details aren’t public. A representative for CMB declined to comment further on its plans.
Grosoli, 56, said the firm is attracting new clients with average investable assets of 10 million euros as wealthy individuals flood into Monaco, a territory smaller than New York’s Central Park and the scene of one of the world’s biggest annual yacht shows.
“It’s a melting pot,” he said in an interview. “Lately, you’ve had quite an interesting tech community of entrepreneurs, much younger than what we have seen in the past, being based here and moving here because they’re realizing that you can, post-Covid, manage your business differently.”
Mediobanca, one of Italy’s biggest banks, has owned a controlling stake in CMB since 2004 and first invested in the wealth manager about a decade following its founding in 1976.
CMB acquired ABN Amro Bank NV’s Monaco unit in 2006 for an undisclosed sum and UniCredit SpA’s operations in the city-state two years later, bringing in about 500 million euros of assets from more than 1,600 clients. CMB opened a Swiss branch in 2009 but sold it after three years to PKB Privatbank.
Grosoli joined in 2019 from Barclays Plc, where he led its private bank for the Europe, Middle East and Africa business in the city-state. He earlier held a similar role at HSBC Holdings Plc, which scaled back its Monaco operations in 2016.
Other global banks including Citigroup Inc. and UBS Group AG have a presence in Monaco, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. returned this year with a team of Barclays veterans.
“These big names are very welcome,” said Grosoli, an Italian native who has lived in Monaco since the 1970s. “The more the competitors we have on the market, the more the market progresses.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.
