UBS CLOSES ADVISING UNIT IN BASEL

Carolyn Bandel reports for Bloomberg that UBS AG, the world’s largest wealth manager, will close a division that advises Swiss clients on investing in art. UBS will try to offer the unit’s eleven employees other jobs within the bank, spokeswoman Tatiana Togni said in a telephone interview yesterday. The company started the Basel-based team in 1998 as part of its wealth-management division. “Art banking does not belong to our core activities, so we will discontinue the operation,” Togni said. UBS will refer clients to external advisers in future, she added. Led by Karl Schweizer, the unit offered research on art-market prices, provenance verification, and advice on buying artworks to clients and visitors at the annual Art Basel art fair. UBS’s decision to shut the division won’t affect its sponsorship of the event, which will only expire in 2011, according to the bank. “We have recently signed a sponsorship agreement for several years,” said Maike Cruse, a spokeswoman for Art Basel. “There won’t be any impact from this on us.”