UBS Nabs Top Credit Suisse Private Banker

Wealth manager UBS is poaching the banker instrumental in setting up Credit Suisse’s entrepreneur’s bank. He is the first prominent defector to join Iqbal Khan at UBS.

UBS is enlisting Remi Mennesson to set up a financing team in a bid to provide better and faster service for its wealthiest clients, according to a memo. Mennesson is a discreet Swiss banking heavyweight and 20-year veteran of Credit Suisse, where he was a key ally of top private banker Iqbal Khan.

At Credit Suisse, Mennesson led a strategic transactions unit that catered financing solutions to ultra-high net worth clients, generally viewed as those with more than $30 million in bankable assets. Khan and his co-head Tom Naratil have renewed emphasis on the segment by carving it out into a smaller group in January.

Mennesson, a managing director at Credit Suisse, will join UBS in November. He will report to four co-presidents: investment bank co-bosses Rob Karofsky and Piero Novelli as well as Khan and Naratil. A spokesman for UBS confirmed the contents of the memo, which was first reported by Reuters overnight.