The former chief executive of Swiss bank UBS said yesterday he had launched a campaign to break up the company, which has been hit hard by the US subprime crisis, and make sweeping changes to the board.
Luqman Arnold, who was forced out of his job in 2001, also revealed in a statement that he had built up a 0.7 percent stake in UBS through his London-based investment firm Olivant.
He said he was pressing for a shake-up of UBS, which this week announced massive writedowns, taking the total damage it has suffered so far from the US subprime mortgage crisis to US$37.4 billion.
Arnold said in the statement: “There is an urgent requirement for effective and relevant leadership of UBS’s supervisory board, the establishment of appropriate corporate governance, forward thinking about future capital needs, a clearer and more focused corporate strategy, a fundamental overhaul of risk discipline, and more open and transparent communication both with the market and internally.”
He said he had written to UBS vice chairman Sergio Marchionne ahead of the bank’s annual general meeting on April 23 to express his concerns.
Arnold is proposing that the bank sell its asset management division, its Brazilian subsidiary and its subsidiaries in Australasia and then separate its investment and private banking arms.
Arnold recently led an unsuccessful bid to take over the British mortgage lender Northern Rock, which was brought to its knees by the global credit crunch and was taken into public ownership in February.
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