UBS former investment bank CEO Kengeter to leave

(Reuters) - Former UBS AG investment bank CEO Carsten Kengeter, who was tasked with winding down the Swiss bank's non-core portfolio, is set to leave the bank, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.

Kengeter, who will assist in a short transition period, will be succeeded by Sam Molinaro, a former Bear Stearns executive.

Molinaro will take charge with immediate effect and will report to group CEO Sergio Ermotti.

A spokesman for the company confirmed the contents of the memo.

Kengeter, who joined UBS four years ago from Goldman Sachs , spent three of those years as CEO of the investment bank. During that time it lost $2.3 billion due to trades by rogue trader Kweku Adoboli which also cost former Chief Executive Oswald Gruebel his job.

Kengeter was sidelined following a restructuring plan, announced in October, to fire 10,000 staff and ditch much of its trading business to return UBS to its private banking roots. He moved off the executive board and was tasked with overseeing the non-core unit established to wind down the discontinued fixed-income activities.

Last Tuesday, UBS reported faster than expected progress in overhauling its investment bank, slashing risky assets by 19 percent to meet capital rules.

Andrea Orcel replaced Kengeter as sole head of the investment bank months after CEO Sergio Ermotti hired Orcel to reshape its struggling investment bank business in July 2012.

Italian banker Orcel has since brought in a group of close collaborators from Bank of America , where he and Ermotti worked for years.

The co-head of UBS's financial institutions group (FIG) in Europe, Edouard de Vitry, is leaving the bank in the latest high level restructuring in its investment bank division, three people with knowledge of the situation said on Tuesday.

It is not known what Kengeter's plans are once he leaves the bank. His replacement, Molinaro, joined UBS last year as chief operating officer of the investment bank, later taking up that position in the non-core unit.

(Reporting by Anjuli Davies in London and Karen Rebelo in Bangalore; Editing by Gary Hill and Phil Berlowitz)