Pictet Group

The Scripte de société (memorandum of association) for the Banque De Candolle Mallet & Cie

Pictet traces its origin to the foundation of Banque De Candolle Mallet & Cie in Geneva on 23 July 1805. On that day, Jacob-Michel-François de Candolle and Jacques-Henry Mallet signed, with three limited partners,[6] a Scripte de Société (memorandum of association) to form a partnership.[7] Like all Geneva banks at the time, it started out trading in goods, but soon abandoned trading to concentrate on assisting clients in their financial and commercial business and advising them on managing their wealth. By the 1830s, it held a broad range of securities on behalf of clients, to diversify their risks.

On the death of de Candolle in 1841, his wife’s nephew Edouard Pictet joined the partnership, and the name Pictet has remained with the bank ever since. Between 1890 and 1929, the Bank went through a period of substantial growth, the number of employees rising from 12 to more than 80 over 30 years.[8] Although the Pictet family had been intimately engaged with the bank since the mid 19th century, it was only in 1926 that the company changed its name to Pictet & Cie.

After a period of relative stagnation marked by the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Second World War, Pictet began to expand in the 1950s as the Western world entered a prolonged period of prosperity and economic growth. In the late 1960s, the Bank embarked on the new business of institutional asset management, which has since grown to account for around half its total assets under management.[9] In 1974, it opened an office in Montreal, the first of its current network of 28 offices around the world. Its workforce of 70 staff in 1950 rose to 300 by 1980.[10]

As of 2011, Pictet was Switzerland’s third largest wealth management company, and also one of Europe’s largest banks in private hands[11]

In 2014, Pictet changed its legal structure from a simple partnership to become a corporate partnership (société en commandite par actions), which acts as a holding company for its global business.[12] Pictet did not publish its annual results during its 209 years as a simple partnership, then published annual results for the first time upon becoming a corporate partnership.[13] This enabled the company to manage its businesses in an international environment,[14] and also allows the seven partners who are owner-managers of Pictet to preserve the rules of succession, which have remained unchanged for more than 200 years. Under those rules, ownership cannot be passed down to partners’ children: it is a temporary status which ends once a partner has retired. Partners hand over ownership of Pictet in batches every five to 10 years so that there are always partners from three generations connected to the family, to avoid problems that can arise with generational change.[11] To date, there have been only 43 partners.[15]

Pictet operates by assigning business activities and key functions like human resources, risk control and legal affairs to different partners. Small committees supervise the various corporate activities so that no single partner is solely responsible for an entire area. Pictet Group’s senior partner, who is the most senior partner at the time of appointment, has oversight for areas concerning central corporate functions, such as HR, auditing, risk and compliance.[11] As primus inter pares, he chairs the partners meetings and represents Pictet inside and outside the bank.

In 2008, Pictet launched the Prix Pictet, an award for photography highlighting societal interactions and problems.[19] Each year, nominated photographers are invited to submit a series of pictures on a chosen theme, such as "Water" (2008) and "Space" (2017).[20][21] The winner is selected by an independent jury led by Sir David King.[22] Kofi Annan was president of the Prix Pictet from its founding in 2008 until his death in 2018.[23]