UBS appointes new Asia chief executive in latest top management change

UBS appoints new chief executive for Asia business

HONG KONG — UBS named former electrical engineer Chi-Won Yoon as chairman and chief executive of its Asia business Thursday in the latest top management change at the Swiss bank that’s been hard hit by the financial crisis.

Yoon replaces Rory Tapner who is leaving UBS after 25 years, it said in a statement.

UBS, which lost 2 billion Swiss francs ($1.7 billion) in the first quarter, replaced its global chief executive Marcel Rohner in February with former Credit Suisse executive Oswald Grubel. One of Grubel’s first moves was to replace UBS’s head of investment banking.

The bank has also agreed to pay $780 million in fines and restitutions to settle allegations it helped U.S. customers evade taxes.

UBS said Yoon joined UBS in 1997 and since then held various executive positions including head of the fixed income, currencies and commodities business in Asia.

Before joining the finance industry in 1986 in New York, he was an electrical engineer who worked on satellite communications systems used in NASA’s space shuttle program, UBS said.