UBS Chief Sutton Leaves Bank
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UBS AG, the world’s biggest money manager, said Mark Sutton will leave as chief executive officer of American operations 16 months after taking on the role.
Robert Wolf, the chief operating officer at UBS’s investment bank, will replace Sutton, 52, as head of the Americas, UBS said today. The 44-year-old Mr. Wolf, based in New York, will report to London-based investment banking chief Huw Jenkins, 48.
Mr. Sutton joined UBS when it acquired Paine Webber Group Inc. for $11 billion six years ago, the Zurich-based bank’s biggest foray into American wealth management. UBS took steps to gain more wealthy American clients this year by acquiring brokerage units from Cleveland-based KeyCorp and Minneapolis-based Piper Jaffray Cos. Net client investments into the American private bank sank by two-thirds in the third quarter from a year ago, UBS said last week.
“I know from UBS people in Zurich that they weren’t very satisfied with the result of American operations,” a man who helps manage the equivalent of about $2.4 billion, including shares of UBS, at BNP Paribas Private Bank Switzerland in Zurich, Dieter Buchholz, said.”They didn’t perform in trading, and in private banking net new money was at the very low end.”
Third-quarter profit fell 21%, missing analysts’ estimates, as trading revenue dropped at its investment bank. Profit before tax at the unit fell 22% to 1.08 billion Swiss francs ($870 million).
Net new money at the American private bank, which includes the former Paine Webber brokerage UBS acquired in 2000, slumped to 3.4 billion francs from 9.9 billion francs a year earlier.
Mr. Sutton is leaving at the end of the year “to pursue a range of other business opportunities and personal interests,” Zurich-based UBS said. Mr. Wolf, who has been with the bank for 12 years, will take responsibility for “accelerating the development of UBS’s client base” and coordinating the American investment banking, wealth management and asset management units.
“The investment bank is not firing on all cylinders and a big focus is on how they improve their position in America,” an analyst at Bear Stearns Cos. in London who rates UBS shares ‘outperform,’ Christopher Wheeler, said. “They probably feel that Huw is better positioned to lead that effort.”
Mr. Sutton didn’t respond to a request for comment.