The former Geneva bank Reyl, which passed entirely into the hands of the Italian group Intesa Sanpaolo at the end of January, will part ways with around thirty of its 300 employees by the end of March. The type of positions and the regions concerned are not specified.
These staff reductions are intended to “restore the profitability and performance” of the establishment, indicates a spokesperson for the AWP agency, confirming information published Friday by the newspaper L’Agefi.
The employees concerned will benefit from a social plan and collective redundancies “in line with market practices”, including severance pay, a professional reintegration plan and psychological support.
This measure will have no impact on operations, adds the bank.
This measure comes after the full takeover of the Geneva establishment at the end of January by Fideuram – Intesa Sanpaolo Private Banking. The wealth management subsidiary of the transalpine group, which took a 69% stake in Reyl in the spring of 2011, bought the remaining shares from historic shareholder François Reyl, as well as three former partners of the private bank, who subsequently left their positions.
This transition puts an end to a family adventure launched in 1973 by Dominique Reyl, father of François. The bank has gone through some turbulence in recent years and was widely talked about during the Cahuzac affair.
In April 2013, the bank admitted to having facilitated the tax fraud of French clients, in a case linked to the affair of the former French Minister of the Budget, Jérôme Cahuzac. Managing Director between 2008 and 2024, François Reyl was sentenced in France to one year of suspended imprisonment and a fine of 375,000 euros.
Last April, Finma opened an investigation into multiple “weaknesses” in the fight against money laundering and the control of so-called high-risk clients. Hundreds of millions linked to Central Asian autocrats or politically exposed figures in Russia would have passed through accounts managed by Banque Reyl, according to documents published by a consortium of journalists.
