By Noele Illien
ZURICH (Reuters) -UBS said on Thursday it would split its top wealth management role as part of a board shake-up, creating new responsibilities for two leading candidates to eventually lead the Swiss bank, after CEO Sergio Ermotti.
UBS investment banking chief Rob Karofsky will become head of the Americas and co-president of global asset management in July alongside current asset management boss Iqbal Khan, who will now also take charge of the Asia-Pacific region.
Khan, a Swiss citizen, will move to Asia from September 1 to take up the new role. Khan and Karofsky, an American, are among the top internal candidates to replace Ermotti, who the bank has indicated could remain in charge until at least 2027. .
Vontobel analyst Andreas Venditti described the reshuffle as more drastic than expected.
“With these changes, Iqbal and Rob are the leading candidates for the position of CEO of UBS,” he said.
Ermotti said in a statement that the new appointments “place even greater emphasis on our long-term priorities and growth prospects, especially in the Americas and Asia Pacific.”
According to a recent media report, Ermotti has rejected the appointment of an outsider as his successor and plans to nominate internal candidates, just as he did when he last left UBS in 2020.
“Our goal is to really dramatically increase the chances that we can have an internal candidate,” Ermotti told Reuters this month.
Beatriz Martin, president of UBS Europe, Middle East and Africa, is also considered a potential successor to Ermotti.
UBS, which is in the process of integrating its long-time rival Credit Suisse, made the announcements ahead of the merger of the banks’ main parent companies, which is expected to be legally completed on Friday. UBS acquired Credit Suisse last year.
The bank’s shares closed down just over 0.7%.
The parent merger is expected to allow the Swiss bank to tackle more difficult phases of integration, such as combining IT systems, migrating Credit Suisse customers and reducing the workforce of the expanded banks to more than 110,000.
As part of the reorganization, former Credit Suisse CEO Ulrich Koerner will retire from the bank later this year, UBS said.
The bank also appointed George Athanasopoulos and Marco Valla as co-presidents of the investment bank, part of a series of changes UBS is taking effect from July 1.
Damian Vogel will take over the role of risk officer from Christian Bluhm as part of a previously announced departure. Bluhm will continue to fulfill an advisory role.
UBS Americas President Naureen Hassan will step down effective July 1, one of several female executives to have left the bank in the past year.
In addition, Switzerland’s finance ministry said Thursday it had fined UBS 50,000 Swiss francs ($55,340) for failing to warn authorities of suspected money laundering linked to Ali Abdullah Saleh, a former president of Yemen who died in 2017 .
The case, initially reported by Swiss public broadcaster SRF, related to transactions Saleh carried out after opening a UBS account in 2004.
UBS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
($1 = 0.9035 Swiss francs)
