UBS shakes up flagship wealth business with new unit, memo says

By Noele Illien and Oliver Hirt

ZURICH (Reuters) -UBS is shaking up its wealth-management arm, the bank's flagship business, to boost its offerings to ultra-rich clients, the division's new co-leaders said in their first internal memo sent on Thursday and seen by Reuters.

UBS will create a new unit from July 1, named GWM Solutions, to integrate various client offerings, such as investment management, lending, family and institutional wealth management and alternative investments, the memo from Rob Karofsky and Iqbal Khan said.

The unit will be led by former Credit Suisse banker Yves-Alain Sommerhalder who will be based in Zurich and New York and report to Karofsky and Khan.

In a separate memo, the bank said it was creating a unit called "Unified Global Alternatives," shifting some of its alternative asset-management products closer to its wealth arm.

The new unit will incorporate alternative products from its wealth and asset management businesses, including real estate and private market investments.

Reuters reported in May that UBS was considering whether parts of the asset-management unit should be absorbed by its larger wealth-management activities as the bank aimed to cut costs.

Wealth management is UBS' flagship business, making up more than half of total revenues at the Swiss bank, which last year took over Credit Suisse in a state-sponsored rescue and is in the process of integrating its former rival.

Last month, UBS said it would split its top wealth-management role, creating new responsibilities for Karofsky and Khan as two leading contenders to eventually succeed CEO Sergio Ermotti.

In a further move, Latin America will become its own business unit led by Marcello Chilov, Credit Suisse's former chief executive officer in Brazil.

In the United States, JPMorgan banker Michael Camacho will join UBS as head of U.S. global wealth management, starting Sept. 16.

(Reporting by Noele Illien and Oliver Hirt; additional reporting by Stefania Spezzati; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Rod Nickel)