Six years ago as the dotcom bubble had well and truly deflated, Bank Sarasin was in a sorry state – so much so that it needed to bring in a strategic investor, the Dutch-based Rabobank, for it to remain independent or even to survive.

A few years later and a complete management overhaul in between, the Basel-based bank is now being watched by an rising number of observes as one of the more interesting private banks in Switzerland, if not one of the more successful.