The race to succeed UBS Chairman Axel Weber is narrowing, with Switzerland’s best-known banker emerging as a promising candidate.
The search to replace Axel Weber, who has overseen the Swiss wealth giant for nearly a decade, is winnowing candidates. The bank, which will ask shareholders in five months to vote on the replacement, appears to feel comfortable enough with the process to wait a while longer before «the big reveal».
Blackrock top executive Philipp Hildebrand, who «ticks a lot of boxes», is emerging as a promising candidate to succeed Weber at the helm of Switzerland’s biggest bank and the world’s largest wealth manager, a person familiar with the matter told finews.com. Hildebrand has met recently with both Weber and the UBS director leading the succession, Jeremy Anderson, the person said.
Typifies Swiss, Foreign Experience
The 58-year-old Swiss ex-central banker last year launched an ultimately unsuccessful bid to front the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Hildebrand, who typifies Swiss credibility with foreign experience, didn't respond to a request for comment. UBS declined to comment.
Hildebrand, the partner of Margarita Louis-Dreyfus who controls the namesake commodities trading house, is also a perennial candidate for any number of top Swiss finance jobs – including the Credit Suisse chair which in April went to António Horta Osório.
Powerful Signal Of Rehabilitation
The Swiss executive is rounding nine years with the U.S. asset manager, where he is part of a cadre of employees close to co-founder and CEO Larry Fink. Hildebrand isn't without controversy: a currency dealing scandal cut short his central banking career in 2012.
The OECD bid, backed by both Blackrock as well as the Swiss government, is a powerful signal of Hildebrand’s rehabilitation nearly ten years on. His back-story with UBS might be slightly trickier: the Swiss bank's crisis-era Chairman, Peter Kurer, argued its rescue in 2008 in which then-central banker Hildebrand was instrumental was «unnecessary».
Hildebrand had made a name for himself after the crisis by advocating that European banks be subject to additional regulation such as their leverage ratios. UBS has tapped Egon Zehnder, a search firm with whom it has done business for decades, to replace Weber.
Overshadowed By Archrival Woes
To be sure, Hildebrand isn’t the only candidate still in the running, after early favorite Christoph Franz dropped out, as finews.com reported last month. UBS' searchers have also sounded out Deutsche Boerse CEO Theo Weimer, previously an Unicredit top executive, according to a person familiar with the events.
The Swiss bank tentatively plans to disclose the succession plan around year-end, another person familiar with the matter said. One reason it is in no particular hurry is that crosstown rival Credit Suisse’s problems have overshadowed any public or media attention that would have otherwise gone to UBS, as finews.com reported on Friday.
Between Frankfurt And Zurich
The annual general meeting is April 22. The process is complicated by Zehnder’s search to replace Deutsche Bank’s Chairman, Paul Achleitner, the same year as Weber is due to hand over in Zurich.
Weber’s successor at the Bundesbank, Jens Weidmann, resigned from the job this week, five years before his current term ends. The German central banker is touted by insiders as a candidate for Deutsche Bank – and less likely for UBS due in part to a two-year cooling-off period, a person familiar with the search said.
