Swiss banking giant UBS unveiled a series of corporate governance reforms, including a new chairman-to-be, after earlier admitting to shareholders that the bank had poor risk controls and inadequate management structures, according to an article in the New York Times.
“We no longer aim to offer everything to everyone in investment banking,” the chief executive, Marcel Rohner, told investors Wednesday at UBS’s annual shareholder meeting. “We do not need an oversized balance sheet. We do not need an oversized inventory of trading portfolios. And we do not need an unnecessary concentration of risk.”
During the meeting, the second in two months, shareholders approved by a large majority a set of measures to raise capital, namely a rights offer of about $15 billion. They also elected two new members to the executive board, including Peter Kurer, the bank’s general counsel. He will immediately become the bank’s chairman once elected by the board, an action that is considered a formality, according to the Times report.
Kurer called for an overhaul in the management structure to clearly delineate the roles and responsibilities of the directors on the one hand and the executives on the other.