UBS to set up new group asset and liability unit

ZURICH (Reuters) - UBS said on Thursday it will set up a separate group asset and liability unit to help it manage risk in the bank's new structure, which ensures it can be broken up more easily in case of a renewed crisis.

Claude Moser, currently group treasurer at the Zurich-based bank, will head up the new Group Asset and Liability Management unit outside of its Treasury unit, UBS Chief Financial Officer Tom Naratil said in an internal memo seen by Reuters.

A UBS spokeswoman confirmed the contents of the memo.

Part of the new unit's task will be strengthening the bank's global risk management and the changes will come into effect from Jan. 1.

Carlo Pellerani will replace Moser as group treasurer, the memo said. Duncan Rodgers, currently head of Treasury Asset and Liability Management at UBS, has also been appointed deputy head of the new unit and will lead the new asset and liability exposure management area.

Switzerland's biggest bank is making the changes "to respond to the emerging regulatory direction of greater regional and legal entity self-sufficiency," Naratil said in the memo. The bank also hopes to benefit from economies of scale.

UBS said in May it planned to break with its existing structure in which a parent company holds a host of interconnected branches, in order to satisfy regulators' demands for separate legal entities in different regions.

It is nearing the end of a share-for-share exchange launched in September as part of the restructuring drive. It has said it expects to propose a supplementary payout to shareholders of at least 0.25 francs a share once it had completed the transaction.

(Reporting by Joshua Franklin, editing by David Evans)