UBS to Restructure Investment Bank

UBS is going to revamp its investment banking unit along the lines of a wealth management business. The goal is to make the unit leaner and more global.

Piero Novelli and Rob Karofsky are about to unveil their plans for a revamp of the investment banking business at UBS, according to media reports. The two managers have been in charge of the business for a little less than a year.

The co-heads are planning to merge certain divisions within the bank in a bid to make the management structure leaner. The advisory service to companies for mergers, acquisitions and IPOs will become the responsibility of Javier Oficialdegui and Ros Stephenson. Currently, the business is led by three regional heads.

The same brush will be applied to the equity and fixed-income trading, which has been kept separate so far. George Athanasopoulos and Jason Barron will be appointed as co-heads.

The merger of the units will lead to duplications among managers and hence likely to a reduction of the respective headcount.

Sergio Ermotti, the CEO of UBS, in 2018 merged North America with the rest of the world in wealth management, a move that helped the bank save $200 million a year, according to an interview with Chairman Axel Weber. By 2021, the sum will reach $600 million. And still, the business hasn’t performed according to expectations.

Novelli and Karofsky obviously hope to cut costs and boost revenues with the help of a leaner and more efficient structure. Details of their plan will follow later today at an internal event, according to the reports.