Bank chief resigns over £1.5bn rogue trader crisis
Swiss bank UBS Chief Executive Oswald Gruebel has stepped down after the massive loss caused by alleged unauthorised trading at its London-based investment banking unit
The head of the Swiss bank at the centre of the rogue trading scandal resigned yesterday after telling colleagues it was his duty to take responsibility for the £1.5 billion loss.
UBS chief executive Oswald Gruebel stepped down from his £1.9 million-a-year job in an attempt to limit further damage to the bank’s reputation.
Last week the 67-year-old German had claimed he still had the backing of the board.
But yesterday he bowed to pressure from institutional shareholders demanding ‘firm action’ to restore confidence in the financial giant.
His departure follows the arrest of a UBS trader in the City of London who is alleged to have lost the bank vast sums of money by engaging in unauthorised deals over the past three years.
Kweku Adoboli has been charged with fraud and false accounting and is due to appear in court again on October 20.
His lawyer said last week that the Ghanaian-born trader was ‘sorry beyond words for what had happened’.
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Solicitor Patrick Gibbs added: ‘He went to UBS and told them what he had done, and stands now appalled at the scale of the consequences of his disastrous miscalculations.’
Arrested: Suspected rogue trader Kweku Adoboli was arrested last week and charged with fraud and false accounting for the loss
Mr Gruebel came out of retirement two years ago to lead UBS after the bank had suffered an unprecedented loss from toxic investments in the subprime mortgage market.
He cut thousands of jobs, many of them at the bank’s London office, and was praised for steering UBS back to profit.
On Friday the former Credit Suisse boss was the first to leave a crisis meeting of UBS chiefs, refusing to answer questions as he sat alone in the back of a chauffeured Mercedes. The bank’s Europe chief, Sergio Ermotti, has been appointed interim chief executive until a permanent replacement for Mr Gruebel has been found.
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