The board of Swiss giant UBS, the world's largest wealth manager, will propose to its next annual general meeting on 23 April 2008 that the terms of office of directors be reduced from three years to one year. UBS has recently been under pressure from shareholder groups to realign its business model. There have been repeated calls for the group to be broken up after the Swiss bank last year wrote down $18 billion in bad credits and posted the first loss since its creation. It has also warned of further write downs that could tip it into a second year of losses. Last year the bank posted record wealth management results, though. This latest corporate governance change will mean that new or re-elected members of the board are appointed for a one-year term only. As a result, by 2010, at the latest, the entire board of directors of UBS will be confirmed on a yearly basis by the AGM. On this basis, the board will propose to the AGM that chairman Marcel Ospel, Peter Voser and Larry Weinbach, whose terms of office expire on the date of the AGM, be re-elected for a one-year term. The board has also appointed Sergio Marchionne, chief executive at Italian car maker Fiat, as a non-executive vice chairman. From 24 April 2008, the chairman’s office will therefore consist of Marcel Ospel, Stephan Haeringer as executive vice chairman and Sergio Marchionne as non-executive vice chairman. Larry Weinbach, who had asked to hand over the chairmanship of the audit committee, will remain a member of this committee but will be succeeded as its chairman by Peter Voser, chief financial officer at Royal Dutch Shell.