The decline was largely due to costs of CHF99m ($106m) associated with integrating the Merrill Lynch businesses, acquired from BofA, and a CHF28m ($30m) charge linked to the withholding tax treaty between Switzerland and the UK.
On an adjusted basis, excluding these charges, its net profit rose by 26% to CHF261m ($279m), compared to CHF208m ($222m) during the corresponding period earlier year.
Commenting on the result, Julius Baer chief executive officer Boris Collardi said, "On the back of a recovery in client activity and better cost efficiency, our Group markedly improved its operational performance in the first half of 2013."
"At the same time, we made tremendous progress in the integration of IWM, which makes us confident that we will achieve our goal of having 80% of targeted IWM client assets reported at Julius Baer by the end of this year."
Its operating income increased by 25% year on year to CHF1.07bn ($1.14bn), and the gross margin improved to 102 basis points (bps) compared to 98bps during the same period last year, on an improvement in client activity.
Its BIS total capital ratio stood at 24.5% and its BIS tier 1 capital ratio at 22.9%, supported by the pre-funding in 2012 of the acquisition of IWM.
Headquartered in Zurich, Julius Baer manages offices in Dubai, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hong Kong, London, Lugano, Madrid, Monaco, Montevideo, Moscow, Shanghai to Singapore.
