Gruebel faces tough task to retain pole position amid UBS board talks

Top executives at the Swiss bank, which has staggered from crisis to crisis over the past three years, are under pressure to downsize or fence off risky trading activities and protect its core business of managing private investors’ wealth.

After the meeting a casually-dressed Gruebel declined to comment on his future. Wearing a black polo shirt and khaki trousers as he crossed the lobby of Singapore’s Ritz-Carlton hotel – where the bank’s top brass are staying – Gruebel shook his head when asked by a reporter whether he could say anything.

Clients pulled nearly 400 billion Swiss francs (£287bn) – almost 20 per cent of total client assets – from UBS during the financial crisis as the bank was battered by subprime losses, a prolonged dispute with the US tax authorities and the biggest annual corporate loss in Swiss history.

The bank’s inflows have since turned positive, but other private banks are now circling again to nab clients worried about reputational risk in the wake of the rogue trader affair. The £1.5bn allegedly racked up by UBS trader Kweku Adoboli in unauthorised trades compares to the €4.9bn (£4.3bn) lost by rogue trader Jerome Kerviel at Societe Generale just three years ago, an event which prompted calls for tighter rules and felled that bank’s then-chairman and chief executive Daniel Bouton.

With his job now on the line, Gruebel, a former trader himself, was expected to have urged the board to keep him and his “integrated banking” strategy – maintaining the investment bank which he placed at the heart of UBS’ recovery when he took over in 2009.

A UBS source said before the end of the meeting – held in UBS offices at the exclusive Raffles Quay location – that the board would be given an update on its internal investigation into the trading debacle.

UBS’s board meeting, one of four regular meetings per year, coincides with the Singapore Formula One motor racing Grand Prix, of which UBS is a major sponsor.

The crisis has left Gruebel facing not only strategic issues, such as whether the bank should stick to its safer core wealth management business, but also concern about his management team and lax risk supervision.

The 67-year-old German delivered “a consistent message” throughout the week that the investment bank is a key part of UBS’s future, despite twin British and Swiss investigations into how Adoboli evaded UBS’s compliance department, sources said.

UBS’s largest shareholder, Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, met the bank’s management earlier this week and in a rare public statement expressed its disappointment.

It urged the management to take firm action to restore confidence and wanted details of how the bank would tighten risk controls.

Gruebel is expected to scale back proprietary trading and fixed income, but not do away with them completely. “They need to complete the internal investigations first.

“It’s not necessary to call for heads to roll yet, we need more detail for that –and it’s not clear who could take over anyway,” said Florian Esterer, senior portfolio manager at Swisscanto, which manages some CHF57bn and holds around $170 million (£110bn) in UBS shares.

“The board is in a bind because it is not sure anyone could realistically take over from Gruebel at present.”