UBS names new global head of fixed income, currencies and commodities

Carsten Kengeter will join UBS in the beginning of 2009 as global head of fixed income, currencies and commodities (FICC).

Kengeter will move to London from Hong Kong, where he was co-head of securities for Asia excluding Japan at Goldman Sachs. He will report to Jerker Johansson, UBS chairman and chief executive, who has been running the FICC business since the departure in May of its former head, Andre Esteves.

Esteves himself had been in the role for only 10 months – he took over in August 2007 from the previous head, Simon Bunce, after the bank suffered heavy losses in the US subprime mortgage market. But the losses continued under Esteves – in May this year UBS reported $19 billion of writedowns on exposure to US real estate and structured credit in the first quarter of the year alone.

Esteves remains at UBS as head of the bank’s Latin American operations.