UBS has axed a raft of senior Credit Suisse executives after the bank completed the takeover of its ailing rival.
The Swiss lender said a number of Credit Suisse’s most senior bosses will leave the combined company, while others will take on lesser roles, as UBS asserts its dominance following the tie-up.
The high-profile departures include: Dixit Joshi, Credit Suisse’s finance chief; Markus Diethelm, its general counsel; David Miller, co-head of its investment bank; and Ken Pang, co-head of markets.
On Monday, UBS announced 160 leadership positions in the joint lender, with only a fifth of the roles going to Credit Suisse employees.
The £2.6bn tie-up was orchestrated by Swiss authorities in March to avoid Credit Suisse failing and precipitating a wider crisis in the global banking industry.
Sergio Ermotti, who led UBS for nine years until 2020, was parachuted in to replace Ralph Hamers as chief executive of the bigger bank less than two weeks after regulators engineered the emergency takeover.
On Monday, the UBS boss said that about 10% of Credit Suisse employees have left the bank in the past few months.
Last month, UBS chairman Colm Kelleher warned of “cultural contamination” in taking on staff from Credit Suisse. He said: “We are going to have an incredibly high bar for who we bring into UBS.”
Bosses at UBS have also reportedly drawn up a list of nearly two dozen “red lines” that prohibit Credit Suisse staff from a range of activities from the first day the two banks are combined, including a ban on new clients from high-risk countries such as Libya or Russia and on complex financial products.