UBS boss gets board backing in calls for tougher regulation

UBS chief executive Oswald Gruebel said he has the support of his board despite the rogue trading scandal that cost the Swiss bank $2.3 billion and prompted calls for tougher regulation of risky investment bank practices.

Arriving in Singapore for meetings with the bank's management and board, Gruebel laughed when asked by Reuters at his hotel on Wednesday if he still had the board's backing and said, "Yes. Always."

Gruebel is expected to ask UBS's board to back plans for a radical overhaul of investment banking under his leadership at a meeting in Singapore, a plan sources said would be sped up after the trading scandal.

London-based UBS trader Kweku Adoboli was charged on Friday with fraud and false accounting dating back to 2008 relating to the losses.

UBS said in a statement on Sunday that he concealed "unauthorised speculative trading" in equity index futures over the last three months" by creating fictitious hedging positions in internal systems.

Gruebel said on Sunday he would "bear the consequences" of the trading loss that was discovered last week but did not want to quit, adding the affair would influence the future strategy of the investment bank.

The bank's executive board was due to meet on Wednesday at their main offices in the city's business district before its wider set of board members meet later in the week.

The meeting is one of the four held every year and strategic changes to the investment bank are on the agenda, said several sources with direct knowledge of the plans.

It coincides with Singapore hosting the Formula One Grand Prix, of which UBS is a major sponsor.