UBS is reorganizing its management, naming CFO Tom Naratil to succeed Robert McCann as president of UBS Americas and Wealth Management Americas.
The moves are the latest by Sergio Ermotti, the bank’s CEO, who scaled back the investment bank starting in 2012 to focus more on wealth management, a business that rival Credit Suisse now also wants to prioritize. UBS is the world’s largest wealth manager and derives the biggest chunk of income from managing money for high-net-worth and ultrahigh-net-worth clients.
In the executive shuffle, McCann will become chairman of UBS Americas, where he’ll focus on “clients and strategic priorities,” the company said. Kirt Gardner, CFO of wealth management, will become UBS’ CFO and join the executive board.
Before Naratil, 53, was appointed group CFO in 2011, he served as CFO and chief risk officer of UBS Wealth Management Americas. Previously, he held various senior management positions within UBS, including heading the auction rate securities solutions group during the financial crisis in 2008. He was named global head of marketing for segment and client development in 2007, global head of market strategy and development in 2005, and director of banking and transactional solutions, wealth management USA, in 2002. Naratil joined Paine Webber in 1983; following its merger with UBS, he became director of the investment products group.
Separately, UBS said third-quarter profits more than doubled to 2.07 billion Swiss francs ($2.1 billion) in the three months through September from 762 million francs a year ago. That exceeded the 1.73 billion-franc average estimate of six analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. For the third time in two years, the bank pushed back a profitability target, citing stricter capital rules at home and changes in the economic outlook and conditions. UBS now wants to achieve 15% return on tangible equity by 2017. It said it will beat this year’s target of a 10% return and will aim for that next year as well.
“Today’s results will be viewed slightly negatively,” Andreas Brun, an analyst at Zuercher Kantonalbank, told Bloomberg. “This is because net new money growth is lower than expected” and the turbulence in Asia also weighed on the business.
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