UBS Group promoted Martin Blessing to lead its wealth unit, placing the relative newcomer as a potential successor to chief executive officer Sergio Ermotti.
Blessing, a former Commerzbank CEO, is taking over from Juerg Zeltner, who is leaving after more than 30 years at UBS. In announcing the decision, the Zurich-based bank pointed to Blessing’s achievements as head of the domestic business, as well as personal and corporate banking. It didn’t give a reason for Zeltner’s departure, which Bloomberg reported earlier.
“Martin Blessing brought himself into pole position to become Ermotti’s successor” by taking charge of UBS’s most important unit, said Andreas Brun, an analyst at Mirabaud Securities in Zurich.
“The major changes at UBS definitely came as a surprise to us, although UBS’s performance in wealth management recently lagged behind Credit Suisse or Julius Baer in net new money growth and margin development.”
The change at UBS is the second high-profile shake-up at a major Swiss wealth manager in recent weeks, after Boris Collardi unexpectedly resigned as CEO of Julius Baer Group Ltd to become a partner at Pictet & Cie. Blessing was hired last year after about eight years in charge at Germany’s No 2 bank. He restored dividends after shrinking the lender’s bad-loan pile following a bailout, prompting analysts and investors to speculate he could eventually take the top UBS job.
Ermotti has been at the head of UBS since 2011. Chairman Axel Weber said earlier this year that he wants to stay in his job until 2022, adding that based on conversations with Ermotti, the CEO would also like to remain until then. In a recent interview with Bloomberg Markets magazine, Ermotti declined to say what he might do if he left UBS, or comment on speculation that he might be moving into politics.
“I think that if you start thinking about what you’re going to do next, it’s almost like you’re checking out,” he said.
“Axel Weber said in public that he and I will stay for another five years. By then we’re going to be old enough. And I have no intention of stepping down.”
Wealth management is a key profit driver at UBS. The division’s third-quarter earnings before tax rose more than 16% from a year earlier, beating analysts’ estimates. Overall net new money was 4.6bn Swiss francs ($4.7bn), mainly driven by inflows from wealthy Asian clients.
UBS is focusing on the business after scaling back its investment bank.
“It’s now likely that Blessing has strong support from the board of directors,” said Tomasz Grzelak, an analyst at Baader Helvea. Blessing is going from running “the second-most important division to its most important division.”
Zeltner, 50, has worked at UBS for more than 30 years after joining predecessor Swiss Bank Corp as an apprentice in 1984, UBS said in the statement. He has been on the bank’s global executive board since 2009, according to a biography on the company’s website. His wealth-management division held 1.28tn Swiss francs of client assets at the end of September. UBS also has a separate wealth-management unit in the Americas overseeing $1.25tn.
The bank didn’t give a reason for Zeltner’s departure beyond saying that he will retire from the firm in 2018.
Martin Blessing, a former Commerzbank CEO, speaks during a meeting in Frankfurt. Blessing is taking over from Juerg Zeltner, who is leaving after more than 30 years at UBS.
