UBS Strengthens Australasian Equities and Research Unit

UBS has hired four new executives and promoted two others for its equities and research team in Australia and New Zealand. John Storey joins as a banks analyst from J.P. Morgan in South Africa and Richard Schellbach joins from Citi in London as an equity strategist, according to UBS.

Storey and Schellbach were hired to replace Jonathan Mott who left to join startup bank Barrenjoey Capital Partners and Pieter Stoltz, current head of quantitative strategies at fund manager Eley Griffiths, respectively.

In the global markets division, UBS also hired Tom Tepaa, who joins the block trading desk from Goldman Sachs in Singapore, and David Nicholson who joins the Australian equity sales team from Citi in Boston.

In addition to new hires, UBS has also announced two promotions for its New Zealand business.

Thomas Buchanan will relocate from Hong Kong to become New Zealand head of distribution and Will Becker was named New Zealand head of sales trading for global markets.

The latest hires follow the exodus from UBS’ investment banking unit dubbed bloody Monday after a flurry of executives left to join Barrenjoey Capital Partners in March.

After the poaching spree, UBS Australasia co-chief executive Anthony Sweetman vowed to offer top dollar to rebuild the team, boasting that the bank was consistently the higher payer in the industry in an interview and that this would not change for the regional market.