(Bloomberg) -- UBS Group AG Chairman Colm Kelleher said Swiss regulators played no part in the board’s decision to bring back Sergio Ermotti as chief executive officer. 

Kelleher said in a statement Thursday that the bank’s board alone made the decision after it agreed to a takeover of rival Credit Suisse Group AG. That came in response to a Bloomberg report that Swiss officials favored a move to bring in an experienced chief to run the combined bank, and indicated that preference during the weekend when the rescue deal was negotiated. 

“This story is categorically untrue,” Kelleher said in a subsequent statement. “The board decided on the chief executive change without influence from or interaction with regulators.”

Ermotti, who ran UBS from 2011 to 2020 and is currently the chairman of reinsurer Swiss Re, will take over from current CEO Ralph Hamers on April 5, UBS said in a statement on Wednesday.

Kelleher said in a press conference on Wednesday that it was the board’s decision and regulators subsequently approved it. 

“The regulatory input into this was after the event,” he said on Wednesday, “after the board had made its decision.”

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