Société Générale

The private banking unit was led by Mathieu Vedrenne until early 2025, when the group appointed a new global head of wealth management to refresh its ultra-high-net-worth strategy (per the firm, February 2025). The division operates under the global banking and investor solutions segment, which is overseen by group deputy CEO Philippe Aymerich. The external asset manager desk in Geneva has dedicated leadership specializing in family office coverage.

The bank uses an open-architecture model where its external asset manager desk and fund selection team curate a panel of third-party private equity, private debt, infrastructure, and hedge fund managers for clients. Additionally, the structured products engine manufactures bespoke derivatives and structured notes in-house — a manufacturing capability rare among competitors — which enables customized downside-protected or leveraged exposures to underlying alternative strategies without a direct fund commitment. For direct co-investment opportunities, the private banking unit can leverage the group's corporate and investment banking deal flow, a synergy that independent multi-family offices typically lack.

Société Générale is neither — it is a publicly listed universal bank with a private banking arm. However, its key-client platform operates with a service model resembling an outsourced family office, providing consolidated wealth reporting, cross-border structuring, and alternative investment access to wealthy European families. It does not manage the wealth of a single originating fortune, nor is it a pure multi-family office; instead, it is a bank serving single-family offices as clients.

The unit primarily operates via open-architecture fund commitments and structured product wrappers. Direct deal-by-deal co-investments are possible through the external asset manager desk in Switzerland, typically sourced from the corporate and investment bank's pipeline, but these are not the platform's primary delivery mechanism. The structured products desk allows clients to gain synthetic exposure to hedge fund indexes, private equity benchmarks, and real assets without a traditional fund subscription, which many family office clients use for liquidity management and collateral considerations.

The group participates as a co-investor in infrastructure and real-asset transactions through its own balance sheet and through structured finance teams at SG CIB. For wealth management clients, co-investment opportunities are typically presented on a deal-by-deal basis, subject to regulatory constraints and minimum ticket sizes that often exceed €5 million. The external asset manager desk organizes club-style access for a select group of family office clients on structured transactions where the bank is already acting as arranger, creating alignment between the bank's own risk-taking and the client's deployment.

The core coverage is Europe — France, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Monaco — along with a growing Middle Eastern presence. The Geneva external asset manager desk specifically serves single-family offices and independent wealth managers from across Europe and the Levant. The international retail banking network provides complementary coverage in North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, servicing locally domiciled family offices and HNW individuals in Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, and Morocco.

Philanthropy advisory is delivered through the wealth management division's fiduciary and structuring teams, primarily in Switzerland and Luxembourg, rather than through a standalone foundation. The bank itself operates the Société Générale Corporate Foundation for social impact, but this is separate from the private banking offering. For family office clients, the bank structures donor-advised-like vehicles using Luxembourg RAIFs or Swiss foundations, depending on the jurisdiction, and coordinates with the structured products desk to accept non-cash contributions or create liquidity events for concentrated holdings intended for philanthropy.