After a legal fight with Bank of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC) / Merrill Lynch to shorten the duration of his noncompete clause, Robert McCann
is now CEO of UBS (NYSE:UBS) Wealth Management Americas and a member of the group executive board of UBS. He leads the troubled unit's nearly 8,000 financial advisers in more than 320 branches across the U.S., Puerto Rico and Canada. McCann replaces a departing Marten Hoekstra.
Earlier this month, McCann resolved the lawsuit with BofA he filed on Aug. 24. BofA originally said he could not join a rival firm for a year.
McCann announced his intention to leave shortly after Bank of America completed its acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co. in January. His was among the first of many departures at the combined bank. He had a 26-year career with Merrill Lynch, where he led its "thundering herd" of 16,000 brokers. He was most recently a vice chairman of Merrill and president of global wealth management. McCann has also been a governor of Finra and a board member of the Securities Industry Association.
UBS got a massive bailout from the Swiss government to keep from going under and was also the target of an Internal Revenue Service investigation earlier this year. It was accused of helping wealthy Americans avoid taxes. UBS paid $780 million to settle and said it will give up information on 4,450 accounts within a year. Clients have pulled out well over $100 billion over the past year and a half. UBS chief executive Oswald Gruebel said in a statement, "In the Americas alone, the wealth management market opportunity represents high net worth assets in excess of $20 trillion."
Bloomberg News reported that McCann said he isn't planning to sell the business and doesn't foresee acquisitions at this time. He will present a strategy for the unit by the end of the next quarter. -
Baz Hiralal
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