UBS trader Kweku Adoboli did not seek bail when he made a brief court appearance in London today for a hearing in a case that has cost the Swiss bank $2.3 billion.
Adoboli faced an additional charge of fraud dating between October 2008 and December 2010 which prosecutors said related to "reckless and inappropriate" trades.
Lawyer Patrick Gibbs said Adoboli was "sorry beyond words for what had happened". He did not enter a plea and was remanded in custody until a further hearing next month.
Meanwhile, over 6,000 miles away in Singapore, with his job on the line after the scandal, UBS chief executive Osward Gruebel is embroiled in several days of meetings where he will fight to maintain the investment bank as part of the group's business alongside wealth management.
The 67-year-old German, a former bond trader himself, has been delivering "a consistent message" throughout the week, despite twin British and Swiss investigations into how Adoboli evaded UBS's compliance department, sources said.
"One incident doesn't mean UBS will rush to sell the investment bank," said a second source who attended a meeting between Gruebel and senior Asian executives earlier in the week. But the market expects to see at least one senior head roll.
Gruebel said on Wednesday he had the support of the bank's board ahead of its first meeting since announcing the loss. Brought out of retirement in 2009 to turn UBS around after $50 billion of losses on sub-prime assets forced the Swiss government to bail out the bank, which was then hit by a scandal relating to helping US clients to evade taxes.
The board of directors meets today and tomorrow, one of four regular meetings per year, coinciding with the Singapore Formula One motor racing Grand Prix, of which UBS is a major sponsor.
Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, which is UBS's biggest shareholder, with a 6.4% stake, publicly expressed disappointment and concern at the "lapses", adding pressure on Gruebel to restore confidence.
The CEO is widely expected to speed up the overhaul of its investment bank that had been planned for announcement at a November 17 investor day. Big shareholders have signalled they could wait until then while the bank completed an internal investigation, another source at the bank said.
Gruebel is likely to cite progress made under his leadership in cutting risk-weighted assets by a third since 2008, boosting its capital cushion and cutting costs. Client inflows have turned positive, but analysts warned the latest rogue trading incident raises the risk of reversing that trend.
There was no need for the bank's chairman or CEO to resign over the rogue trader incident, an executive at UBS shareholder Threadneedle Investments said, but called for a change in its investment bank model. "It's a very high quality business with a terrific reputation, but it's been tarnished by inability to manage the risks," Threadneedle said.
Gruebel had been expected to scale back proprietary trading and fixed income operations, but not ditch them completely.
