UBS announced at its annual general meeting the election of two new board members and a desire to strengthen the role of its managers with t...

UBS announced at its annual general meeting the election of two new board members and a desire to strengthen the role of its managers with the buy back of a major tranche of shares. Gabrielle Kaufmann-Kohler, partner at the law firm Schellenberg Wittmer and a professor of international private law at the University of Geneva, becomes a non-executive member of the UBS board, as does Jörg Wolle, chairman and chief executive of DKSH Holding, a market intelligence firm. Peter Böckli's term of office at UBS as non-executive vice chairman of the board of directors, a post he had held since 2002, has finished due to reaching retirement age. UBS also announced the buy back of a total of 37,100,000 shares, worth SFr2.5 billion ($1.9 billion). The Zurich-based bank also agreed at its AGM a further buy back programme for 2006/2007, which has been approved at SFr5 billion. But the actual amount of the buy back in the current financial year will depend on how much free capital is used for investments to support the growth of the bank's core businesses, UBS said.