Geneva-based Swiss private bank, Pictet & Cie has opened an office in Barcelona to provide wealth management services to individual clients in the four Spanish provinces in the northeast corner of the Iberian Peninsula that make up the autonomous homeland of the Catalans.

"We firmly believe that there is a wealth of potential in Catalonia, one of Europe’s dynamic regions, for demanding clients seeking custom-tailored services, long-term relationships and independent investment advice," said Philippe Bertherat, one of the bank’s eight managing partners.

The new office is fully operational and headed by Calamanda Grifoll, who was previously managing director at Citigroup Private Bank in Catalonia and where she worked for ten years.

Communications director, Frank Renggli, explained to WealthBriefing that this represents the latest in a chain of events that have marked Pictet’s rapid expansion into Spain in recent years. This began in 2000 with the marketing of funds through various distribution arrangements. In 2003, a local office with four staff was set up. Within four years Pictet had become one of the top distributors of funds to institutional clients in Spain and Chile - a market managed from the Madrid office.

At the same time, the first private banking facility was opened in Madrid. It now has a staff of five for private banking led by Fernando de Salinas Mila and a team of eight for fund distribution and asset management under the leadership of Gonzalo Rengifo Abbad.

Legally, the Barcelona office has been established as a sub-branch of the Madrid office that trades under the name Pictet Group (Europe) in Spain.