EFG profit.

Swiss private bank EFG International yesterday posted a 53.5 percent year-on-year drop in first-half net profit, a smaller decline than analysts had forecast. Zurich-based EFG said net profit for the first six months of 2016 stood at 22.3 million Swiss francs ($22.5 million) from 48 million francs a year earlier, ahead of the Reuters poll average estimate of 19 million francs. In February EFG, whose largest stakeholder is Greece’s wealthy Latsis family, agreed to buy Grupo BTG Pactual SA’s Swiss private banking unit BSI. EFG has issued new shares to help fund the deal, which it hopes it will make it one of Switzerland’s five biggest wealth managers.