Costas named chief executive at UBS Warburg; Arnold ousted

UBS Warburg, the investment banking unit of Switzerland’s UBS, has promoted John Costas to chief executive. Based in London, Costas will assume the day-to-day operational leadership of the business group and will sit on the UBS group executive board.

Costas has been chief operating officer and global head of fixed income at UBS Warburg for the past two years. He previously headed US fixed income and derivatives at the bank from March 1996 to June 1997.

Costas gained his derivatives experience at UBS rival Credit Suisse First Boston, where he held a number of roles running fixed income and derivatives divisions.

His promotion comes as Peter Wuffli, formerly chief executive of UBS asset management, was named president of the bank’s group executive board, following the ousting of Luqman Arnold after only eight months at the helm.

Arnold was reportedly reluctant to aggressively use UBS’s balance sheet to gain investment-banking business, which caused a falling out with other top-level executives. He was also said to be against the move to transfer control of recently acquired US brokerage Paine Webber outside of UBS Warburg.