UPDATE 1-UBS has grip on woes, moving to cleanup--Kurer
(Adds quotes from interview, background)
ZURICH, April 11 (Reuters) - Swiss bank UBS AG (UBSN.VX) will move into the "clean up" phase of the credit crisis this year and has no intention of splitting up, its chairman- designate said on Friday.
Board member Peter Kurer, who has been proposed to replace Marcel Ospel as chairman later this month, said write-downs at the world's largest wealth manager have already been so aggressive they could not get any worse.
"The remaining positions have been written down so much that more value reductions on them even under bad market conditions would mathematically not be as large as before," Kurer said in an interview with Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung.
"We've basically got a grip on the UBS-specific problems," he told the paper in the interview to appear in Saturday's edition. "I don't think that we are any worse positioned than our competitors."
Kurer planned reforms to the board of directors and to the investment bank, but UBS intended to keep its three-pillar business model, including wealth management, asset management and investment banking.
"We will maintain our integrated business model," he said.
BREAKUP PRESSURE
UBS has written down around $37 billion in assets and cleaned out most senior management -- including its chairman -- after asking investors for emergency cash two times in as many months, making it the world's hardest-hit bank from the subprime crisis.
The Swiss flagship is under increasing pressure to sell off some business divisions to raise cash, or split up, with speculation also high the bank could be taken over.
Many analysts still expect the bank to do no better than to break even in 2008 as write-downs devour earnings. Kurer told the newspaper he intended to restructure the board of directors, abolishing the chairman's office and creating two specialist units, one for strategy and one for risk, instead.
"We intend to get rid of the three-person presidium, the chairman's office, on the board of directors," he said.
Kurer said the investment bank needed to focus more on client-driven business to align it with the needs of the group.
"The investment bank can no longer be cross-subsidised by wealth management," he said.
UBS has admitted to misjudging markets ahead of the subprime crisis and then failing to react adequately. Continued...
