Swiss bank taps former regional head of Wachovia's personal trust business. UBS Wealth Management has hired Michael Roberts away from Wachovia and put him in charge of UBS Trust Services unit, the new home of its personal and corporate trust businesses.

"To be a great wealth manager in the U.S., you have to be a world-class broker-dealer, have a world-class banking platform, and a world-class trust capability," says Kevin Ruth, head of wealth planning at UBS Wealth Management USA "Michael has been hired to strengthen and grow UBS's trust offering."

Four horsemen

UBS Trust Services is a new entity, the result of the parent company's combination of two pre-existing trust entities -- UBS Fiduciary Trust Company was one of them -- and a new Delaware-based trust entity in an effort to streamline delivery, and enhance development, of its trust services.

An attorney by training, Roberts was with Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia for nearly 20 years. Most recently he headed the bank's personal trust business in Georgia and Florida with responsibility for 22 trust offices and overall assets of around $11 billion. Before that he held positions at First National Bank of Atlanta (now part of Wachovia) and Capital South Corporation.

"There are four principal causes of family wealth depletion in this country today: taxes, lawsuits, divorce and mismanagement, and all four can be avoided or mitigated by the judicious and intelligent use of trusts," says Roberts, who is based in Weehawken, N.J. "By unifying trust services under one UBS Trust Services umbrella, we can help our Financial Advisors integrate trusts and trust-related services into the comprehensive financial advice that they provide to clients."

Zurich-based UBS has offices in 50 countries, with about 39% of its 75,000-strong staff in the Americas, 36% in Switzerland, 16% in the rest of Europe and 9% in the Asian Pacific region. -FWR

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