It has been an eventful 12 months for anyone under the UBS banner and Mr Straus is no exception – he is a man trying to build the reputation of an established global wealth management brand but a fairly new entrant to the ultra competitive US private wealth management market amid a year riddled with scandals.

“As the headlines will dissipate like we intend them to, we anticipate attracting new talent. It will be easier for advisors to make the decision to join us when we are no longer the top story,” Mr Straus, speaking from his Park Avenue headquarters in New York City, told WealthBriefing.

Mr Straus was much more relaxed at the end of the summer last year after posting two years of decent growth following his decision to leave JP Morgan, where he was managing director and head of the US private bank at JP Morgan Chase, to set up the regional high net worth client business unit of the Swiss bank.

He must have thought it was a dream job – bringing the successful Swiss banking model to the US – but then some things happened that would dampen his experience.

It started around October when UBS was one of the first to begin writing down assets as a result of the sub-prime crisis – the firm announced $3.2 billion of write downs in October, and then a further $10 billion in December last year.

In 2008, the UBS name has been front and centre in an investigation into whether it had violated securities and tax laws by helping wealthy US citizens hide money in overseas accounts. Then, as recently as last month, the firm agreed to buy back $18.6 billion and pay $150 million in fines for selling clients' illiquid securities.

“We have to go out, meet with clients, help them understand the headlines and issues and how we’ve dealt with it,” Mr Straus said.

“When you have those conversations I find you’re in pretty good shape . When you don’t have the conversations, you are not,” he said.

Even though the tax evasion probes carried out by US prosecutors and regulators this year have not been directed at the wealth management business Mr Straus heads up, it has not helped the firm build a favorable reputation in the local market.

“I’d say they would be up much more if we weren’t challenged with the headlines we’ve been challenged with,” he said.

As a result of the investigation, subsequent guilty plea in a Florida court by UBS banker Bradley Birkenfeld, for helping a billionaire UBS customer evade US taxes and a US Senate Committee hearing into the issue, UBS stopped offering offshore-banking services to US clients through non-US branches.

As a result of the shutting down of this business, UBS will ask affected US-domiciled clients to transfer their relationship to one of the firm's three US-regulated units, either: UBS Wealth Management Americas, an approximately 8,000 national brokerage business; UBS Swiss Financial Advisors, based in Switzerland; or the firm’s US-regulated/SEC registered UBS Wealth Management International's Hong Kong-based office.

Then there was the auction-rate securities scandal in which UBS was in good company with most of Wall Street’s brokerage firms that have agreed to reimburse clients it sold into the illiquid securities.

Mr Straus said UBS has earned some credibility back from clients for swiftly announcing buybacks of the securities.

So far UBS has committed to purchase a total of $8.3 billion of ARS, at par value, from most private clients during a two-year time period beginning 1 January 2009. According to a statement from the firm, private clients and charities holding less than $1 million in household assets at UBS will be able to make use of this relief beginning 31 October 2008 and from mid-September, UBS will provide loans at no cost to the client for the par value of their ARS holdings.

“We’ve been very proactive about it and I think our clients are pleased at what UBS has agreed to do,” Mr Straus said.

He did not suggest that the buybacks will cancel out any damage done: “I would say it has rattled our clients’ confidence in us. That’s something we’ll have to work hard to regain, even though we agreed to buy them back,” he adds.

It has clearly been a tough year for the world’s biggest wealth manager that has seen an outflow of funds from its once rock-solid private banking business.

In the US, a flight of quality advisors from the big name brokerage firms toward independent channels has resulted in many firms losing advisors.

“This year we’ve probably allowed the smaller advice organisations to have more credibility than they have in the past because they haven’t had any of the other headline issues to deal with,” he said.

Mr Straus would not comment on protectionist tactics to keep advisors from leaving, such as the example in the UK of UBS going to court to prevent wealth management start-up Vestra Wealth soliciting its clients and staff.

“What we have found is if someone leaves the firm, we have been successful keeping the relationships with clients,” he said.

While it is impossible to verify whether wealth management in the US is growing because the firm does not provide separate assets under management figures for its various business units, Mr Straus said his business had increased net new client assets during the last 12 months and brought on 70 new advisors during the period.

UBS’ ultra-high net worth client business in the US is targeted at individuals with a net worth of $25 million and at least $10 million invested with the firm.

Currently private wealth management in the US employs 230 wealth advisors in the US, according to Mr Straus.

Mr Straus said he is confident he will meet his growth targets of employing 350-400 private wealth advisors by 2010 despite the obvious challenges.

“We have a long road ahead to get to the same level we were a year ago in terms of the client confidence in our organization,” he added.