UBS in Talks to Hire Colm Kelleher as Chairman to Succeed Weber

(Bloomberg) — UBS Group AG is in discussions to nominate former Morgan Stanley President Colm Kelleher as chairman, tapping an govt with broad banking and wealth expertise to assist oversee the agency’s pivot in direction of digital.   

Kelleher, 64, is assembly the usboard in Zurich this weekend and a proper announcement on him succeeding Axel Weber may come as quickly as subsequent week, folks aware of the matter stated. They declined to be recognized as a result of the matter is personal.

The financier — as soon as thought of a possible successor to Morgan Stanley Chief Govt Officer James Gorman — will probably be serving to steer a agency that’s searching for to spice up its wealth administration enterprise in Asia and searching for higher effectivity by way of extra digital choices. On the identical time, he’ll need to information UBS by way of a pricey lawsuit in France the place the lender is contesting an enormous tremendous for serving to purchasers evade taxes. 

Weber steered in Could the financial institution ought to contemplate appointing a chairwoman after he exits subsequent yr, because the financial institution seeks to handle a scarcity of gender range on its board. Weber, who’s himself concerned within the search course of together with CEO Ralph Hamers, plans to step down after a couple of decade. The seek for his successor began early this yr and is being led by senior impartial director Jeremy Anderson. 

UBS declined to remark.

The potential appointment at UBS come after Deutsche Financial institution AG additionally proposed this week Alexander Wynaendts as its subsequent chairman of the supervisory board, tapping the previous insurance coverage govt to information Germany’s largest lender because it emerges from a decade of disaster.

Kelleher retired from Morgan Stanley in mid-2019, although he continued as a senior adviser. He joined the New York-based firm in fixed-income gross sales in 1989, earlier than taking up accountability for Morgan Stanley’s funding financial institution and buying and selling operation. After taking up the retail brokerage in 2016, he had accountability for the agency’s two greatest companies.

One in all 9 siblings who grew up in Eire’s County Cork and an Oxford College graduate, he’s skilled in disaster administration, having served as chief monetary officer in the course of the monetary meltdown of 2008, even conducting enterprise mendacity down on his workplace ground after struggling a again damage in a automobile accident. 

He helped Morgan Stanley’s funding financial institution rebuild consumer confidence after hedge funds pulled cash in the course of the crash. He reduce on cumbersome fixed-income buying and selling positions as Morgan Stanley tried to imitate its success in electronically buying and selling shares.

Kelleher’s aggressive spirit typically manifested itself within the agency’s battles with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. In feedback at a convention hosted by the rival agency in 2013, Kelleher mentioned the “pleasure” he took in passing Goldman in stock-trading income, and has additionally stated Morgan Stanley was catching as much as Goldman in advisory charges as a result of “we’re nicer guys.”

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