Paul Knight has lots on his plate as the freshly appointed chairman and CEO of UBS Canada. He’ll be hard at work on his first love — investment banking, particularly for metals and mining companies, which is a major pillar of UBS’s business in Canada. But Knight also is charged with strengthening other divisions of the firm’s Canadian business — wealth management, which focuses on high net-worth clients, including the country’s richest families and business owners — and global asset management.

“In Canada, my role is to oversee all of our business activities. But the learning curve is going to be a lot steeper on the wealth-management and global [asset-]management side,” says Knight, a Montreal native who is delighted to be back on Canadian turf after spending almost his entire career abroad.

Knight, 50, has relocated with his wife and three children from London, where he was managing director of the industrials team for UBS Investment Bank, as well as joint global head of the metals and mining team.

“That’s why I took the job. I like to climb the learning curve. It seems that my job changes every three or four years, and I’m presented with new and unexpected challenges,” says Knight, who will be the “senior voice” at UBS Canada, which has a staff of 400 people in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver.

The CEO’s job is a newly created position for UBS Canada, a subsidiary of Swiss-based global giant UBS AG. The chairman’s seat was last held by former federal finance minister Michael Wilson, who was in the position until he became Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. in 2006.

“I’m happy to be chairman and CEO, but I also want to maintain my link to international clients,” says Knight, who holds Canadian, British and U.S. passports and has a network of connections throughout the world, from Wall Street to Red Square. “Toronto is a great place to continue my role as joint global head of metals and mining on the investment-banking side.”

As head of UBS’s entire Canadian operation, Knight will be talking to all kinds of Canadian-based companies on the investment-banking side about acquisitions, divestitures, capital structures and whether it makes sense to issue bonds, convertible debentures or equities.

In addition, Knight will be keeping a sharp eye out for growth opportunities, and he says an acquisition that fits strategically and culturally for UBS is within the realm of possibility.

“Our bread-and-butter business, on a global basis, has not focused on lending money,” he says. “It’s about advising institutions and high net-worth individuals on how to maximize the value of their assets.”

In general, UBS clients have achieved a high level of wealth and are seeking capital preservation rather than aggressive growth; as a result, the investment approach is risk-averse. On a year-over-year basis, UBS’s assets under management in Canada have remained constant despite the unprecedented volatility in financial markets, due to a combination of conservative management and strong client retention.

Individual clients also benefit from the size and range of UBS’s business. There tends to be overlap and synergies among the different divisions of the group, and clients in one area frequently become clients in another. For example, a client on the wealth-management side may have originally been an investment-banking client who had sold all or part of a business, and consequently has a huge chunk of cash to invest in global assets.

Alternatively, a high net-worth client on the wealth-management side may have business interests around the world, and require assistance with corporate matters such as financing or employee benefit plans.

Knight describes the business as a “virtuous circle,” in which one client may be doing a private-equity issue to raise funds for a resources company, while another could be a Chinese sovereign wealth fund looking to acquire resources assets and secure future commodity supplies. UBS can assist by understanding the themes that are working on both sides of the table.

“Our clients like the international component of what we offer,” Knight says. “The advantage I bring to the Canadian franchise is that I know what we’re good at and what resources UBS has internationally. I know whom to call and they know me, which means you can get to the point faster.”

@page_break@Knight says a high net-worth client is essentially a “small institution” with needs that are similar to those of a smaller business. In the wealth-management division, a staff of 37 financial advisors across Canada service clients with required minimum accounts of $2 million, which usually means they have at least $5 million in investible assets. UBS also provides service to what Knight calls the “Key Client Group,” clients with $35 million or more in investible assets.

On the personal side, UBS clients typically need business-succession plans, complex estate-planning services for multiple generations or multi-jurisdictional tax strategies. Sometimes, clients’ needs are esoteric; but UBS is large enough to offer specialists in narrow and exotic areas, and Knight won’t hesitate to fly them in for meetings.

For example, a Canadian client looking to acquire a winery in the Bordeaux region of France was recently introduced to UBS’s Paris-based “wine banking” team. There is also a team of art specialists, based in Zurich with representatives in New York and London. UBS Canada offers investments denominated in up to 23 currencies for Canadian clients.

Financial advisors on UBS’s Canadian wealth-management team are expected to have attained the Canadian investment manager designation and to have completed the first year of the chartered financial analyst designation, or at least be working on it.

“Most clients are focused on wealth preservation and how a legacy will be managed, and a lot of family consultations are often required,” Knight says. “It’s not about the latest hot stock tip or product. Dealing with the complex needs of sophisticated inves-tors requires a high level of skill, discretion and perseverance, and the CFA requirement sets the bar high.”

Knight has worked at UBS for 15 years, starting in 1994 as executive director and global head of project and structured finance in London. He subsequently worked in New York and Hong Kong, before resettling in London prior to his transfer to Toronto. He has headed up investment-banking teams doing business in Europe, Asia, Russia, Africa, Latin America and the U.S.

It was not Knight’s original intention to work in the investment business; he began his career as a lawyer, fulfilling a childhood dream. He describes his relentless ascent on the international career ladder as a series of accidents that he could never have predicted.

His first job was as a corporate litigator with law firm giant McCarthy & McCarthy (now McCarthy Tétrault LLP) in Toronto, but, after one year, Knight moved to Tokyo to practice international corporate law with a Japan-based law firm. He and his wife, a teacher, wanted to seek adventure and explore working abroad.

Knight jumped from law to the investment-banking business after being lured by Tokyo-based Nomura Securities Co. following his work on a legal team advising Nomura on an acquisition.

“While working on deals with investment bankers, I noticed that they were having all the fun,” Knight jokes. “They’d head off at the end of the day to celebrate, while I was left to attend to all the legal matters. Investment banking is conceptual; it’s about strategy and tactics, and offers a lot of variety. It’s also international in scope: whereas, if you’re a lawyer, you are confined to practising where you have a licence.”

Knight later moved to Nomura’s offices in London, before switching to a position as a senior banker with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London and Moscow and ultimately joining UBS.

Knight explains that outside of UBS’s home base of Switzerland, the company does not pursue traditional retail and commercial banking activities.

On a global basis, UBS’s clients are large institutions or high net-worth individuals, and include corporations, governments, pension funds and multiple generations of some of the world’s most wealthy families. UBS will make loans to clients when appropriate, but lending is not its core business. The firm is the biggest trader of equities in the world, and accounts for one in nine of all stocks traded on an annual basis.

UBS is present in all major financial centres worldwide and employs 75,000 people in 50 offices throughout its network. IE