page_title: Andrea Orcel
section_title: UBS
hierarchical_section_title: Andrea Orcel / Career / UBS
caption_attribution_description: Eingang zur UBS am Zürcher Paradeplatz. Relief aus Solothurner Sandstein "Die Arbeit" von Franz Fischer
context_page_description: Andrea Orcel is an Italian investment banker who most recently served as the president of UBS Investment Bank from November 2014 to September 2018. He was slated to succeed José Antonio Alvarez as chief executive of Spanish bank Banco Santander from September 2018 to January 2019. Since early 2020, Orcel has been linked to taking over as CEO at a variety of financial institutions including starting his own boutique investment bank.
  Born in Rome, Italy, Orcel attended the University of Rome, Sapienza, graduating with degrees in economics and commerce. He attended the INSEAD business school in Paris before working at Goldman Sachs and Boston Consulting Group during the late 1980s. In 1992, he was hired by Merrill Lynch & Co. where he spent the succeeding twenty years in their mergers and acquisitions department in London. He left Merrill Lynch in 2012 to join Swiss investment bank UBS at the behest of its CEO, Sergio Ermotti. From 2012 to 2018, Orcel endured the 2013 Libor trading scandal, led a corporate restructuring, downsized the bank, and increased up M&A activity.
  Orcel is a controversial figure in European business and international banking.
context_section_description: Following the 2011 UBS rogue trader scandal and a corporate restructuring, Orcel was invited to the group executive board and appointed the co-CEO of the investment banking unit of UBS. In November 2012, he was asked to serve as the CEO of UBS AG–the main private banking unit of UBS Group AG before taking sole control of the investment bank. Upon his acceptance of the position, UBS paid Orcel Sfr6.3 million in cash and awarded him Sfr18.5 million in stock options, for a total sign-on bonus of Sfr25 million (£17 million, $26.2 million, or €23 million). In January 2013, following the Libor scandal, Orcel was called before the British Parliament's banking standards commission to explain the company's role in the scandal. Present for nearly three hours of testimony, he expressed regret for the firm's role and stated to commissioner Andrew Tyrie: "we all got probably too arrogant, too self-convinced that things were correct the way they were. I think the industry needs to change." Later that year he was compensated $26 million, in line with a 7% clawback of the company's bonus pool. Although he was hired in a primarily managerial role, he continued to advise some of the firm's higher profile clients and institutional partners. In March 2013, Orcel rejoined his brother Riccardo to negotiate an investment into VTB from a Qatari sovereign wealth fund. From early 2013 to late 2014 Orcel initiated a corporate restructuring of the investment bank, to "[stop] trying to be the biggest investment bank and [focus] on being the best". With a focus on return-on-investment (ROI), deleveraging, and cost reduction, Orcel increased majority capital positions while diminishing the size of the bank. In May 2015, he was the highest earning executive at UBS Group AG, grossing $8 million in base salary. In June 2016, Orcel offered MPS–a client of his at Merrill Lynch during the financial crisis–$5.6 billon (€5 billion) in debt and equity when it was facing liquidity issues and was reaching out to a handful of banks. Orcel made this offer to counter a bailout by the Italian government but was jointly rejected by the Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi and MPS. In February 2016, he orchestrated the merger of Vodafone's and Liberty Global's operations in the Netherlands to create a joint venture in a deal worth $1.1 billion (€1 billion).
  From 2012 to 2017 Orcel fired thousands of employees in order to boost profitability, reducing the company's wage requirements by $3 billion. He reportedly handed lists of people to fire to managing directors while many UBS employees learned of their firing as they came to work and "found their access cards no longer worked." In May 2017, he approved a $2.8 billion (€2.6 billion) financing package to Chinese conglomerate HNA Group so they could buy a 10% stake in Deutsche Bank. In August 2018, a UBS Investment Bank trainee accused one of Orcel's managing directors of drugging and sexually assaulting her at a social gathering in September. Orcel personally invited her to his London office to clarify that the director had been suspended and subsequently resigned. Orcel appeared on Bloomberg Markets later that day explaining a revamped infrastructure and process of handling sexual misconduct at the company, noting it must be "completely eradicated". All throughout the late 2010s, it was speculated that Orcel was to either succeed Ermotti as the chief executive of UBS, or go on to lead either MPS, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, or UniCredit. Orcel was considered to be the "hit-by-the-bus" candidate to lead UBS, an executive who would assume the role of CEO should Ermotti suffer some serious injury. In the months preceding October 2018, Orcel reportedly "lobbied intensely" to be the next CEO of UBS. After giving in to Orcel, UBS put him directly in line to succeed Ermotti.
caption: Orcel worked at the UBS Investment Bank from 2012 to 2018.
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