UBS: McCann to lead US wealth management unit

By The Associated Press

posted: 105 DAYS 8 HOURS AGO

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-Swiss investment bank UBS AG said Tuesday it has named former Merrill Lynch & Co. executive Robert McCann as CEO of its U.S. wealth management unit, replacing Marten Hoekstra, who had held the position since February.

The hiring of McCann, 51, comes after UBS became the target of an Internal Revenue Service effort to get the names of thousands of Americans thought to be hiding assets in secret accounts. Ultimately, UBS paid a $780 million penalty and agreed to disclose the names of 4,450 wealthy Americans.

The Internal Revenue Service had originally tried to force Zurich-based UBS to turn over names of some 52,000 American clients believed to be hiding nearly $15 billion in assets. UBS and the Swiss government had argued the request violated Swiss banking confidentiality laws that date back centuries.

McCann will oversee UBS's U.S. and Canadian wealth management business as well as any international business that is booked in the U.S.

Until January, he was president of global wealth management at Merrill Lynch, where he had worked for 26 years. At Merrill, McCann had also worked as head of global securities research and chief operating officer of global markets and investment banking.

Bank of America Corp. agreed to acquire Merrill Lynch in a hastily arranged deal in September 2008, at the height of the financial crisis, just as Lehman Brothers was preparing to file for bankruptcy. That deal closed on Jan. 1.

McCann had been picked to lead the banks' combined brokerage unit, but instead left the same month the deal was completed.

2009-10-27 18:30:40