UBS has been intensifying succession planning for CEO Sergio Ermotti, with Chairman Axel Weber said to favor an outside candidate for the role. Now a potential successor is in the game.

Swiss bank UBS is in early talks with Bank of America’s ex-investment banking head Christian Meissner (pictured above) about joining as a potential successor to Sergio Ermotti,
according to news wire «Bloomberg».

The discussions have focused on 49-year old Austrian Meissner joining in a senior role that would put him in position to take over as chief executive officer. The Swiss bank is considering other executives and hasn’t yet made any decisions, UBS said. The firm is also said to be looking at succession for some on the board of directors, and is considering strengthening the executive board, the people said.

Limited Risk Appetite

CEO Sergio Ermotti, finews.asia recently reported, wants to leave UBS clean of any legacy issues for his successor. That means waiting out a French criminal probe into tax evasion and money laundering, as well as facing down U.S. civil charges over crisis-era mortgage securities – both cases predate Ermotti's tenure, incidentally.

Meissner, a veteran of Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers, joined Bank of America in 2010 and took the helm of its investment banking unit the next year. He left amid a string of recent dealmaker departures that came as some expressed frustration over the bank’s limited risk appetite, «Bloomberg» reports.

High-Profile Departures

UBS is laying the groundwork to find a replacement for one of Europe’s longest-serving bank CEOs after high-profile departures in the past year, such as top dealmaker Andrea Orcel and wealth management head Juerg Zeltner. Ermotti, who joined UBS in 2011 from Unicredit after a career at Merrill Lynch, steered the bank away from investment banking towards wealth management after a government bailout in 2008.

Meissner declined to comment. A spokesman for UBS declined to comment on individuals, and referred to an earlier statement in which it said that «succession planning has been and will
continue to be part of our regular ongoing run-the-bank operation. There are no changes to what the chairman and the CEO have previously communicated with regard to the planning, process and timing of any succession,» UBS said in the statement.