UBS chief makes a sudden exit
Financial services giant UBS ousted its chief executive Thursday in a surprise move after three quarters of declining earnings.
UBS, the world’s biggest money manager, said Peter Wuffli, 49, “relinquishes all of his functions at UBS.” He was succeeded by Marcel Rohner, 42, the Zurich-based company’s deputy CEO.
Marcel Ospel, 57, agreed to stay on as chairman for at least three years after the board rejected his proposal to have Wuffli replace him.
UBS removed Wuffli after profit fell 13% last year from a record $11.5 billion in 2005 and the company shut down its Dillon Read Capital Management hedge fund unit this year at a cost of $300 million.
The Dillon Read debacle, the drop in earnings and the departure this year of some senior bankers, including investment bank President Ken Moelis, led some investors to question UBS’ strategy.
Los Angeles-based Moelis, who is considered one of Wall Street’s top investment bankers, left UBS on June 30 and has formed his own banking firm, Moelis Advisors, in L.A. He advised Hilton Hotels Corp. on its decision to sell itself to Blackstone Group in a $26-billion deal announced Tuesday.
Richard Bove, an analyst who covers U.S. financial companies for Punk Ziegel & Co., called Wuffli’s sudden exit unusual.
“Boards and CEOs normally don’t split in this way. It’s extraordinarily rare,” he said. “It’s either performance-related or it’s related to the future direction of the company.”
UBS said in May that it was shutting the Dillon Read unit, which Wuffli had championed. The company said the unit’s business plan had proved prohibitively expensive and complicated. The division was set up in part to keep some top traders from leaving the company.
Wuffli joined UBS in 1998 after the company merged with Swiss Bank Corp., where Ospel was CEO and Wuffli was chief financial officer.
Rohner has a doctorate in economics from the University of Zurich and a background in derivatives and risk control. He was head of market risk control at UBS after the merger with Swiss Bank Corp. in 1998 and then spent two years as group chief risk officer.
UBS’ shares are little changed this year. The stock of Zurich-based rival Credit Suisse Group has gained 3.3%.
