Senior dealmaker to leave UBS

One of UBS's most seasoned dealmakers is set to leave following a shake-up of the Swiss lender's investment banking unit last year.

Simon Warshaw, a UBS stalwart who used to co-run the global investment banking unit until last November, has decided to "start a new chapter in his career", the bank said in an internal memo on Thursday.

The move had been widely anticipated by colleagues after the 47-year-old banker stepped down from his management role late last year in a leadership shake-up amid the bank's decision to drastically slim down its bond trading unit.

Andrea Orcel, head of UBS's investment bank, is overseeing the shrinking of the lender's capital-intensive fixed income trading unit while at the same time seeking to strengthen its advisory and equity trading businesses.

He has abandoned the investment bank's previous global co-head structure in favour of a regional model.

This year, he brought in William Vereker from Nomura as head of corporate client solutions in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The high-profile natural resources banker was one of a series of senior hires in UBS's M&A and capital markets advisory unit in the past 12 months.

Mr Warshaw started aged 20 at SG Warburg - the London-based advisory group that was bought by UBS in the late 1990s. He ran UBS's UK investment banking business between 2002 and 2007, before heading the European unit until he took the global helm in 2011.

"Over his many years at the bank, Simon has played a key role in building and developing relationships with some of our key clients," Mr Orcel said in the memo.

"Simon will maintain a close relationship with the firm and will continue to work with UBS on a number of key clients and projects with which he is already closely involved," he added.

Mr Warshaw will continue to help with UBS-advised transactions that include Vodafone's $130bn deal with Verizon, the Royal Mail stock market listing and a newly won advisory role for France's Publicis in the media group's $35bn merger with Omnicom of the US, people close to the situation said.

The banker is expected to join a roster of star dealmakers who after several decades in the business decided to leave their bulge-bracket employer to advise on their own or join a small boutique.

Colleagues said he was not interested in joining another large bank and would probably go to a small firm or set up a small advisory "kiosk".

This would follow a similar move by Simon Robey, Morgan Stanley's former star adviser in Europe, who this year set up a joint boutique firm with former Goldman Sachs banker Sir Simon Robertson.

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