UBP has created a new senior executive position to guide and direct all research efforts and to chair the investment committee. The new head of research will oversee all bottom-up aspects of UBP's investment process, as well as the approved list of hedge fund managers.

The investment risk management function will henceforth be separate and independent from portfolio management and will focus on risk management at both the manager and portfolio levels, with the primary principle being triangulation - full independence between manager, administrator, and custodian.

UBP has also announced today a financial compensation package. In what it describes as a 'goodwill gesture', the bank has offered to acquire from its eligible clients their Madoff-related investments for 50 per cent of the cost basis of their investment by paying them one-fifth of the purchase price each year, plus two per cent interest, over the course of five years.

UBP is active in asset management for both private and institutional clients and had more than CHF100bn in assets under management at the end of December. UBP employs some 1,300 people in some 20 locations worldwide and provides a range of investment products and services, both in traditional and alternative asset management.