Published by Finews.asia – 23rd Jan 2018
UBS’ private banking arm was roiled last month by the exit of long-standing boss Juerg Zeltner. Now, the Swiss bank is making another major change at its flagship 2.6 trillion wealth management unit, finews.asia can report exclusively.
The largest wealth manager in the world ousted veteran Juerg Zeltner last month as head of its private bank. Now, the Zurich-based bank is swapping out a key ally of his as well: emerging markets boss Paul Raphael.
The British-Lebanese banker will be replaced by Christine Novakovic (pictured below), who currently runs UBS’ Swiss investment bank and business with corporate clients. Her appointment as head of Europe, Middle East, and Africa is effective next week,, finews.com has learned. A spokesman for the bank confirmed the move, without elaborating.
Raphael hasn’t yet decided to leave UBS, according to a source familiar with the matter. UBS is attempting to keep him on board in another position,suggesting that he didn’t cede the job to Novakovic entirely of his own volition.
Lost Support
Speculation aside, Raphael was a long-standing ally of Zeltner. Two years ago, the private bank CEO merged UBS’ emerging markets business with its European activities, and surprised some by tasking Raphael with running it. Until then, the 55-year-old former investment banker has run the emerging markets arm for six years.
The aim of that revamp was to cater to rich and ultra-rich clients in Europe as well as in emerging markets from a unified, organized entity. The plan caused strife early on: UBS’ ultra-high net worth business is run by Joe Stadler, who clashed with Raphael repeatedly, UBS bankers told finews.com.
Raphael appears to have lost support within the bank following Zeltner’s ouster. On Monday, CEO Sergio Ermotti highlighted the expansion of UBS’ ultra-rich business as a top management priority, which suggests a strengthening of Stadler’s role.
Raphael also had a lackluster 2017 in performance terms: the wealth units he oversees managed to stanch massive withdrawals at year-end, but only eked out 2.3 billion Swiss francs in net new money. To be sure, the emerging markets business was extremely profitable under Raphael: it contributes an overproportionate profit to the wider wealth arm for its size.
Delayed Gratification
The shuffle is the latest change sparked by Zeltner’s departure last month – the winners of which are Martin Blessing and Tom Naratil as co-heads of a new, uber-private bank as well as Novakovic. The 54-year-old banker has seized the third key spot in UBS’ flagship business – a spot she shares with Edmund Koh, who runs the Swiss bank’s Asian wealth arm.
For Novakovic, the move represents delayed gratification. Trained as an art dealer, she was hired as Citibank’s head of Germany at just 37. Observers predicted a similarly stratospheric rise for her when she joined UBS seven years ago after leaving the industry shortly before the financial crisis.
Though she was promoted to also run UBS’ investment bank in Switzerland four years ago, she was passed over for the overall Swiss job in 2016 when Blessing, formerly CEO of Commerbank, joined the bank. With the emerging markets and Europe move, Novakovic has definitely hit the international stage.
