To think long term means to resist the temptations of short-term fashion in favour of sustainable decision-making. Both our investments and our businesses have a long-term focus, to the lasting benefit of all stakeholders and consequently of the Pictet Group.

1805 Founded in

215 years of growth

6.6% employee turnover rate

The Advantage of Time

Over the past 215 years there have been only 43 partners, each with an average tenure of over 21 years. Because the terms of the partners overlap, the knowledge, experience and values of each generation are absorbed and passed on without interruption.

Evolution, not revolution

Our story is one of resourcefulness and renewal, drawing on the perspective of our history.

The virtue of Pictet’s partnership is the overlapping tenure of the partners and their collective management principles. It means the business does not suffer radical changes in direction: fresh ideas, yes, but evolution not revolution.

Every story starts somewhere.
Ours goes back over 200 years.
play sound mute sound
70374945-DAC7-4FDC-865A-F1C68A1FFB58 Created with sketchtool.

Find out about the origins of the Pictet Group, and the historical context in 1805, when two young men joined forces to create a new form of independent financial partnership, later to be known as a ‘private bank’.

A short history of the Group

Sustainability is central to Pictet’s way of thinking. In aiming to ensure the prosperity of our clients over the long term, we are instinctively predisposed towards the interests of future generations.

The bank was established in 1805 by Jacob-Michel-François de Candolle and Jacques-Henry Mallet when Geneva was under the sway of Napoleon and the financial aftershocks of the French Revolution were still being felt. As war­time inflation subsided, a new generation of finan­cial partnerships emerged, eventually to be known as private bankers.

Over the next one hundred and fifty years, the bank established itself. In 1967 Pictet en­tered the business of institutional asset management and gained its first pension fund account. In subsequent years, asset management has grown to match the size of the wealth management busi­ness. On 1 January 2014 Pictet became a corporate partnership.

Always ready to adapt to changing circum­stances, the thrust of our strategy is towards con­tinuity, stability and sustainability to the enduring advantage of our clients.

One of the world’s oldest family businesses

Banque Pictet & Cie SA was admitted to the Henokiens Association in 2005 at the time of the Bank’s bicentenary.

Find out more