There is a new CEO and chairman at the US investment house, along with other appointments said to represent a wholesale reshuffling of management.

US investment management group AllianceBernstein, which oversees almost half a trillion dollars of client assets, has named former World Bank president and banking industry luminary Robert Zoellick as chairman, while Seth Bernstein, a senior figure at JP Morgan, to take up the roles of president and chief executive, respectively. They take over from Peter Kraus, who departed as CEO/chairman, along with a number of colleagues in a boardroom upheaval.

Media reports described Kraus’ departure as an ouster; he was described as being pushed out by the money maanger’ controlling shareholder – AXA - at the start of the week.

The change of leadership is said to highlight how such firms are seeing margins being hit by competitive pressure from low-cost, passive fund management business models, at the expense of more actively run funds.

AllianceBernstein also has appointed three new independent directors to a newly reconstituted board. Barbara Fallon-Walsh, Daniel G Kaye and Ramon de Oliveira will join the board, along with Zoellick and Bernstein. Current directors Denis Duverne and Mark Pearson will remain on the board, joined by Anders Malmstrom, the chief financial officer of AXA Financial.

Zoellick was president of the World Bank Group from 2007-12‎, is a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and is a board member of Temasek, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund) and Laureate Education. He recently stepped down as chairman of Goldman Sachs International Advisors.

Bernstein, formerly global head of managed solutions and strategy at JP Morgan, brings three decades of experience in investment management and private banking. 

According to a regulatory filing, AXA, the largest shareholder in AB, has agreed to buy Kraus’s 4.3 million shares of Alliance stock, a move that will see Kraus collect about $100 million, the New York Times reported.

"We thank Peter Kraus for his service to AB and its stakeholders since taking over in the challenging environment of 2008. He has built a strong team and we believe the company is well positioned for an excellent future. We wish him well. Looking forward, continued success requires us to keep partnering closely with our clients to create the right solutions for their needs through constant innovation. In an industry that is confronting significant shifts, we need to continue transforming the business to improve the quality of our investment solutions while delivering our services more effectively. We are confident that with Bob and Seth we have the right leadership team in place to capitalize on new opportunities and deliver superior value to all of our stakeholders.," Denis Duverne, AXA's board chairman, said.

The statement did not go into specific detail as to why Kraus is stepping down.