ZURICH: UBS Chief Executive Sergio Ermotti expects to hand over to a colleague when he calls it quits atop Switzerland’s biggest bank, he said in a magazine interview.
The succession issue does not seem pressing. Chairman Axel Weber let it be known last year that he planned to stay on until 2022, with Ermotti as his CEO.
Bilanz magazine said Ermotti had agreed to give Weber a year’s notice before leaving the job he has held since 2011, and that it was clear UBS would seek an internal candidate to lead the world’s biggest private bank.
“Something probably would not have gone well if my successor came from outside,” Ermotti said.
UBS co-heads of wealth management Martin Blessing and Tom Naratil, investment banking head Andrea Orcel, chief operating office Sabine Keller-Busse and Swiss domestic head Axel Lehmann have been named by media as possible successors for Ermotti.
Ermotti was coy about whether he would like to be UBS chairman one day.
“I don’t rule the board out but it’s also not my goal. The important thing is the best solution for the bank,” he told Bilanz.
