Abu Dhabi’s Falcon Private Bank is looking at buying rivals as it expects a wave of consolidation in the industry due to more onerous regulations. Swiss-based Falcon would be open to deals covering its core target markets of the Gulf, Eastern Europe, Africa and South East Asia, according to Erich Pfister, the bank’s global head of private banking. It would be interested in banks managing between 200 million francs and 2 billion francs, he added. The last major acquisition by Falcon, which manages around 16 billion francs of assets, was the October 2012 deal for a London-based unit of boutique Clariden Leu from Credit Suisse, including some 2 billion francs in assets.
