Iqbal Khan knows UBS inside-out from his days as its lead auditor – but one thing still wowed the Swiss star private banker when he defected to the wealth management giant from Credit Suisse.
UBS' poaching of Ibqal Khan from Credit Suisse last year was the private banking industry's biggest move since Boris Collardi left Julius Baer for Pictet three years ago. The culture shock for Khan will have been milder – the two Swiss giants pursue a broadly similar wealth strategy.
However, Khan says he was bowled over by the sheer size of UBS compared to Credit Suisse: «I have to tell you probably my biggest 'wow'-experience on joining UBS was the opening of doors,» he told the «Financial Times» (behind paywall) in an interview on Monday.
Size Matters
The eye-opener is size-based: Khan oversees UBS' nearly $2.4 trillion in assets together Tom Naratil. By comparison, just 327.7 billion Swiss francs ($758 billion) of the overall 737 billion francs he supervised at Credit Suisse is wealth management money (its 195 billion franc Swiss private bank, as well as 197 billion francs of wealthy Asian business, are managed separately).
An ambitious Swiss consultant-turned-banker, the 44-year-old Khan knows UBS inside-out: he was the wealth manager's lead auditor while at EY. He is now reaping credit for changes that UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti recently noted the Swiss bank designed and rolled out in the last 18 months.
Raft of Changes
In January, Khan and Naratil unveiled a host of changes, most notably shifting its key business with the world's super-rich. The move is a bid to speed up how it makes decisions, limit duplication, and «delayer,» – which is expected to mean hundreds of job cuts.
Last week, UBS expanded a push to better entice America's ultra-wealthy, as finews.com reported. The changes come five months before Ralph Hamers is set to take over as CEO of UBS, from Ermotti.
