UBS has shed five members of its corporate governance and impact investing teams across institutional asset management and private wealth management since the summer, according to reports.
Hans-Christoph Hirt, Paul Clark, Christine Chow, Narina Mnatsakanian and James Gifford have left their positions at UBS’ institutional asset management and wealth management divisions, with all but Clark reportedly being made redundant.
Hirt has since been appointed to WHEB Asset Management’s advisory committee, where he will be responsible for oversight and governance on behalf of clients. Meanwhile, Clark is now the global head of stewardship at Northern Trust Asset Management.
Hugh Weelan’s blog post cited the merger with Credit Suisse as the cause of a “significant overlap in asset management roles”, leading to “huge cost-cutting and thus redundancies over time”.
However, he goes on to say that the overlaps at UBS and Credit Suisse “were less significant”, and speculate this is part of bigger cuts across the asset management industry driven by a continued shift to passive and increased competition in active management.
UBS declined to comment.
