Can top lawyer revive Swiss lender?
UBS AG, which reported a second consecutive quarterly loss after $19 billion more in writedowns, is calling on its chief lawyer to replace Chairman Marcel Ospel and revive the fortunes of Europe's biggest bank by assets.
Peter Kurer, 58, UBS general counsel, joined the bank from the Swiss law firm Homburger AG in 2001, where he specialized in mergers including Ciba-Geigy AG and Sandoz AG as well as the sale of British American Tobacco Plc's financial-services unit to Zurich Financial Services in 1998.
"Kurer is an interesting candidate, at least for a transition period," said Dominique Biedermann, director of Ethos Foundation in Geneva, which holds UBS shares and has questioned the bank's risk management controls. "He knows the bank very, very well but he's not a banker" so the board will have to recruit more financial expertise, said Biedermann.
Ospel, who made the formal decision to quit last night, and Kurer were on the same stage together during UBS' Feb 27 investors meeting, responding to shareholder queries. The Zurich- based bank didn't consider an outsider to replace Ospel, it said.
Ospel told shareholders in February that he wants to increase the number of people with banking experience on the board, which includes Sergio Marchionne, Fiat SpA's chief executive officer, and Peter Voser, finance director at Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
Switzerland's biggest bank proposed Morgan Stanley's former chief financial officer David Sidwell to the board on March 13.
Kurer's experience at UBS and financial markets "will prove most valuable at this juncture", Helmut Panke, who chairs the board's nominating committee, said in the UBS statement.
Agencies
(China Daily 04/02/2008 page17)
