UBS installs joint heads of fixed income

UBS has appointed Jeffrey Mayer and Carsten Kengeter as joint global heads of the fixed income, currencies and commodities (FICC) business.

The pair will have responsibility for all fixed-income products including credit, rates, foreign exchange, structured products, emerging markets, commodities, securitised products, client coverage and research.

Mayer was most recently global co-head of fixed income at Bear Stearns and a member of the board of directors. Prior to this, he headed Bear Stearns' mortgage- and asset-backed securities department. He began his career at Bear Stearns as a senior mortgage trader in 1989.

Mayer will be based in New York and Stamford and report to Jerker Johansson, chairman and CEO of UBS's investment bank arm.

Kengeter takes up his post at the start of next year. He moves to London from Hong Kong, where he was co-head of securities for Asia excluding Japan at Goldman Sachs. He also reports to Jerker Johansson.

Johansson had been running the FICC business since the departure in May of its former head, Andre Esteves. Esteves himself had been in the role for only 10 months - he took over in August 2007 from the previous head, Simon Bunce, after the bank suffered heavy losses in the US subprime mortgage market.

Subsequently, in May this year, UBS reported $19 billion of writedowns on exposure to US real estate and structured credit in the first quarter of the year alone.

Esteves remains at UBS as head of the bank's Latin American operations.