Swiss banking giant UBS today announced a number of management changes within its investment banking division, and organizational changes to the group risk control function.
Jerker Johansson, chairman and CEO of UBS Investment Bank, is assuming responsibility for the Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities division on an interim basis. Former FICC head, Andre Esteves, will focus full-time on his role as chairman and CEO of UBS Latin America. Esteves will continue to advise Johansson on the risk management of positions within FICC’s Workout Group.
Johansson said, “Assuming responsibility for FICC will allow me to get closer to the most complex part of the IB portfolio and directly engage with the leaders in the business to review and further reposition our platform around our core client facing product capabilities.”
Also within UBS Investment Bank, Daniel Coleman has been appointed global head of equities. John Wall, formerly co-head of global equities with Coleman, will become global head of proprietary trading, with responsibility across both equities and fixed income. Both Coleman and Wall will continue to report to Johansson.
“Having someone with John’s trading and risk management expertise will allow us to ensure that our proprietary trading activities are managed in a holistic fashion across the investment bank, with the objective of focusing on maximizing our returns on allocated capital,” Johansson said.
Additionally, UBS announced the appointment of Philip Lofts as group risk chief operating officer and that Thomas Daula will join the firm in June as chief risk officer for the investment bank. Daula was most recently at Morgan Stanley, where he was chief risk officer. At UBS, he will become a member of the group managing board, reporting jointly to Johansson and Joe Scoby, group chief risk officer.
Within the risk control function, UBS announced the integration of the monitoring and controlling responsibilities of the group’s market risk and credit risk functions into a single unit to be called group portfolio and concentration risk control. It will have responsibility for the monitoring and controlling of the firm’s overall risk exposure across credit, market and country risk, as well as performing portfolio analytics on risk evolution at the overall portfolio level.
“These changes are designed to establish a best in class risk control team with an overall view of all risks,” said Scoby. “The creation of an integrated portfolio and concentration risk group will help break down any remaining information silos between the different risk functions.”