UBS says needs 3 years to repair reputation

ZURICH (Reuters) – UBS needs three years to repair the reputation damage suffered after it bet massively, and wrongly, on the U.S. mortgage market and became the world's hardest-hit bank from the subprime crisis, the bank's chairman-designate said on Wednesday.

"We shouldn't fool ourselves," Peter Kurer told the Financial Times in an interview. "We can't pretend that there has been no reputation damage. Experience says it goes away after two or three years."

UBS, the world's largest wealth manager, has written down around $37 bln in assets and cleaned out most senior management — including chairman Marcel Ospel — after asking investors for emergency cash two times in as many months.
Kurer is expected to assume the chairmanship after the group's annual shareholders meeting on April 23.