“ZURICH/LONDON (Reuters) – UBS faced a fresh call to separate its investment banking operations and wealth management division at an investor meeting on Thursday, after activist investor Knight Vinke Asset Management demanded a review of the Swiss bank’s structure.
The surprise intervention by New York-based Knight Vinke comes six months after UBS decided to pull out of the most risky areas of investment banking and just days after first-quarter results beat expectations, giving investors some reassurance that the strategy was working.
One top ten shareholder dismissed Knight Vinke’s argument that UBS’s investment bank was holding back its wealth management arm, which attracted the most customer money in six years in the first quarter of this year.
“I would not buy the argument that one side is preventing the other side from reaching full potential. For sure, there was a phase where that was the case because of the way the investment bank was run but to me, UBS is learning from past mistakes and is moving forward,” said the investor, who declined to be named.
UBS said it would listen to the arguments and ideas of its shareholders and discuss them at the annual general meeting, which was being held on the outskirts of Zurich….”
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