A potential candidate's rejection complicates the Swiss bank’s search to replace long-standing chairman Axel Weber. finews.asia lifts the veil on others under consideration.
It is less than seven months until spring, which will be when Zurich-based UBS shareholders are expected to vote on replacing Axel Weber. The same season also marks a decade of his tenure as the top overseer of the Swiss wealth manager as chairman. A search for his replacement began earlier this year, with those vetting candidates comprising Weber himself, and CEO Ralph Hamers, as UBS has indicated.
Weber leaves UBS while it is being rejuvenated under Hamers, who is now rounding out his first year there. Weber insists he will not seek to extend his term, three sources close to the former Bundesbanker have told finews.asia. UBS itself declined to comment.
Laborious Search
The trawl is proving difficult. Led by UBS director Jeremy Anderson and long-time advisers Egon Zehnder, the search committee has been trying to do its best to hone in on external candidates that have experience either as CEOs or board chairs. The thinking seems to be reminiscent of Credit Suisse's search for its current chairman António Horta Osório, who previously was the CEO of Lloyds.
However, the candidate they long believed would be a front-runner, Christoph Franz, turned them down, according to a person familiar with the process. The German-Swiss executive, who has chaired Roche since 2014, confirmed to finews.com he «isn't available to chair UBS».
Return Of a Crisis-Era Banker?
Ex-Deutsche Bank boss John Cryan is also on the search committee, and Zehnder's, shortlist. The British investment banker, who currently chairs hedge fund firm Man Group, remains hugely respected in Switzerland for his role in UBS’ 2008 government bailout. But he is also tainted by his short stint, which was less than three years, running Deutsche Bank. Cryan didn't respond to a request for comment.
Blackrock top executive Philip Hildebrand «ticks a lot of boxes», a person familiar with the search said. A perennial candidate for any number of top Swiss finance jobs, the 58-year-old Swiss ex-central banker last year launched a bid to front the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Hildebrand didn't respond to a request for comment.
Rehabilitated Reputation
Although that effort failed, it did serve to illustrate that Hildebrand's reputation has been rehabilitated enough for a top role after the 2012 foreign exchange dealing scandal which cost him his job running Switzerland’s central bank. But it isn’t clear whether Hildebrand is actively pursuing a job with UBS.
Lukas Gaehwiler, who chairs the Swiss wealth manager’s domestic business, was touted by the committee until he signaled he isn’t interested in stepping up to the group-level board, two people familiar with the search said. The 56-year-old is a board director at publishing house Ringier as well as at Pilatus, which manufactures military aircraft. Gaehwiler declined to comment.
Diversity In Focus
The search committee last year lost outspoken director Isabelle Romy, who didn’t stand for re-election, as well as David Sidwell, who retired. As a result, Anderson enlisted William Dudley, Dieter Wemmer, and Fred Hu in a bid for «a broader range of perspectives,» the bank said in March. Julie Richardson, a U.S. former investment banker, is the only woman on the committee.
The inclusion of Franz and Cryan underscores how the Swiss bank has few viable internal candidates although several may be interested. This could include Anderson, Reto Francioni, or William Dudley, according to a source. But at 63, 66, and 68, respectively, two of them are older than Weber and all are likely too old to sit for re-election. None of the three responded to a request for comment.
SPAC Focus
Zehnder and Anderson cast the net wider and considered, then dismissed, the idea of asking Jean-Pierre Mustier, who ran Unicredit until last year. The 60-year-old Frenchman is an excellent crisis manager, but perhaps less good as a consensus-builder, which is what the UBS’ board feels the bank currently needs, the source said. In any case, Mustier is focused on his special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, and not on board roles, a person familiar with his thinking said.
The search committee does not appear to have considered Mark Carney, the widely-respected former Bank of England as well as Bank of Canada chief who knows Weber well. Carney, a career central banker who is Canadian, Irish, and British, is viewed as not being firmly entrenched enough in the banking business to be a viable replacement for Weber.
