The firm announced its financial results for 2017 and reported an increase in profits, AuM and client assets.

Dutch banking group Van Laschot Kempen, which has private banking, wealth and asset management segments, has logged a 36 per cent rise in net profit in 2017 to €94.9 million ($117 million) from €69.8 million.

Client assets rose over 20 per cent to €83.6 billion (year-end 2016: €69.4 billion).

Assets under management swelled to €69.2 billion in 2017, which was an increase of 26.7 per cent (€54.6 billion in 2016). The firm said it was mainly driven by €9.3 billion in net inflows.

The firm’s CET 1 ratio is up to 20.3 per cent (2016: 18.6 per cent). Common Equity Tier 1 is a component of Tier 1 capital that consists mostly of common stock held by a bank or other financial institution. It is a capital measure that was introduced in 2014 as a precautionary measure to protect the economy from a financial crisis. It is expected that all banks should meet the minimum required CET 1 ratio of 4.50 per cent by 2019.

“We have made good progress every year since we started our transformation into a specialist wealth manager five years ago, and provide an increasingly enhanced service to our clients," said Karl Guha, chairman. "Our focus on wealth management has increased in 2017 as we have managed to wind down our corporate loan portfolio to €0.9 billion and as we have spun-off or outsourced a range of activities not part of our core business. Van Lanschot Participaties, for one, has been spun off and we have completed the outsourcing of our mortgage administration."

Guha added: “We launched our sustainable Duurzaam+ investment offering at private banking, while asset management introduced its Sustainable Value Creation Fund, both examples of how we respond to our clients´ wishes. Digitalisation is becoming increasingly important in all our core activities and is facilitating a data-driven approach, creating opportunities to enhance our wealth management proposition for both private and institutional clients."

These results come after the firm completed the acquisition of UBS’ wealth management activities in the Netherlands, as reported by this publication in August.

Buy-back
The firm also announced that it will start the repurchase of up to 400,000 of its own shares (depositary receipts for Class A ordinary shares). 

At the closing price of 21 February 2018, the programme will cost a maximum €11 million. It will serve to cover the depositary receipts to be allocated to employees under the existing remuneration policy and share plans.

The share buy-back programme will end on the day before the publication of Van Lanschot Kempen’s 2018 annual figures, or sooner if the maximum number of repurchased shares is reached before then. Van Lanschot Kempen has tasked ING implementing the buy-back programme. ING will make its trading decisions independently of Van Lanschot Kempen.

Share repurchasing is when a company buys back its own shares from the marketplace, typically because management thinks the shares are undervalued, reducing the number of outstanding shares. The company buys shares directly from the market or offers its shareholders the option of tendering their shares directly to the company at a fixed price.