CS Credit Suisse Group

By Liz Hoffman and Jenny Strasburg 

Credit Suisse Group AG has hired a new head of equities from UBS Group AG, hoping to reinvigorate its stock-trading business and better ply that service to global billionaires .

Michael Stewart will join the Swiss bank to run equities in its global markets business, the core of its trading operation, according to a memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. He currently sits at the intersection of UBS's massive wealth-management franchise and its securities division, helping to bring the type of institutional-level trading to wealth clients.

A Credit Suisse spokeswoman confirmed the contents of the memo. A UBS spokeswoman declined to comment.

Mr. Stewart previously oversaw global equities at UBS and before that at Bank of America Corp.

That experience squares with Credit Suisse's goal of building an investment bank around its roster of global wealth-management clients. The restructuring of the bank under Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam prioritizes trading, advisory and underwriting that can be sold to the ultrarich world-wide, and has been cutting parts of its business that don't fit.

In the process, the bank has shrunk its fixed-income trading and derivatives business, but has continued to emphasize merger advice, lending and trading by a pared-back stable of hedge-fund clients.

Equities trading is key to the bank's offerings, Brian Chin, head of Credit Suisse's markets business, said at a conference last week.

Credit Suisse's revenue from trading stocks and stock-linked instruments fell sharply this year from 2015, the result of "weaker contribution from our equities businesses," particularly in Europe, according to a November presentation.

Credit Suisse said in November it has now cut 5,400 jobs, including contractors, of the 6,000 planned as part of its restructuring.

Current equities chief Mike Paliotta, whose roles have included overseeing equities trading and the prime brokerage unit that handles trades and loans securities to hedge funds, will continue in his role until June, according to the memo.

Mr. Stewart will be based in New York and will report to Mr. Chin, who was promoted in a September shake-up at the top of the markets business. Mr. Chin replaced Timothy O'Hara, who left after less than a year as CEO of the business, which includes its capital-intensive trading arm.

Mr. Stewart originally joined UBS in 2011 as head of securities for the Americas and co-head of global equities. He later moved to wealth management based in Zurich, a division with around $900 billion in invested assets at the end of 2015 and clients in more than 40 countries.

Write to Liz Hoffman at liz.hoffman@wsj.com and Jenny Strasburg at jenny.strasburg@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 15, 2016 08:41 ET (13:41 GMT)

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