Näf will form part of the team headed by Dr Riccardo Petrachi, who was installed as Rothschild’s head of UHNW clients in March this year. Petrachi joined from UBS, where he had been co-head of the UHNW international team for two years.

Näf joins from Müller-Möhl Group, a Zurich-based family office where he had spent seven years and was chief executive. During his tenure he managed the group’s multi-asset-class investment portfolio, served on the board of directors of a variety of portfolio companies and managed the exits of selected direct investments. Before joining Müller-Möhl Group he was a partner at Swiss Capital Group in Zurich.

Rothschild has said that it regards its UHNW business as “strategically important.” In July Dow Jones reported that Rothschild was looking to raise the profit contribution from its Zurich-based private bank to 40 per cent of overall profit from about 25 per cent at that time.

Coutts, Barclays Wealth and HSBC Private Bank have all announced several senior UHNW-related hires in the past month or so – this despite such clients increasingly being regarded by some as a less profitable segment due to the demands these “quasi-institutions” can place on firms because of their size.