UBS CEO feels has backing of board: report

Wed Feb 11, 2009

ZURICH (Reuters) - Marcel Rohner, chief executive of Switzerland's UBS (UBS.N)(UBSN.VX), feels he has the backing of the board, he was quoted as saying on Wednesday, playing down talk that his support may be waning.

"I feel support. This is for me an indispensable requirement for working hard to get this bank back on track," Rohner was quoted as saying in an interview with Swiss newspaper Handelszeitung.
In January, Deputy Chairman Sergio Marchionne raised questions about Rohner's ability to turn UBS around at an investor meeting and commentators have said that it is a matter of time before there is a reshuffle.

But a source has told Reuters that both Chairman Peter Kurer and Rohner still enjoy full support within UBS.

UBS posted the biggest annual corporate loss in Swiss history on Tuesday and said it would cut 2,000 investment banking jobs as it looks to overcome the credit crisis.

The bank, which is the world's biggest banker to the rich, was one of the first to be hit by subprime woes, as a disastrous expansion into investment banking forced it to write down $49 billion and shattered its reputation for Swiss solidity.