ZURICH, Sept 12 Reuters Julius Baer39;s chief executive said on Tuesday there was nothing standing in the way of the Swiss bank becoming a 1 trillion wealth manager sometime in the next decade.

Speaking at an LSEG and Reuters Newsmaker event in Zurich, Philipp Rickenbacher said it was within reach for the bank to double its assets under management to 1 trillion Swiss francs 1.12 trillion in the 2030s, though he declined to give an exact timeline or commit to that figure as a specific goal.

Instead, the executive, who has led the bank since September 2019, described the figure as a thought hurdle, which Switzerland39;s second largest listed bank would achieve mainly through organic growth.

We are a growth company. We have proven that over the last decade, and if you take the longterm horizon, there39;s nothing in the way of us further gaining in scale in such a growing market across the globe, Rickenbacher said.

The executive said with current uncertainties surround the United States, worries about the European downturn and China39;s economy slowing, meant many clients were sitting on cash.

I think the propensity of investors today to invest in the capital markets is a little bit muted, he told the event.

Rickenbacher said that while a shift in external conditions could improve client confidence, so far some uncertainties remained.

He sounded cautiously optimistic about the resilience of the world39;s number one and two economies, but made clear Julius Baer had…