Business

Ermotti is favorite to land UBS post

Switzerland’s biggest bank is likely to name newcomer Sergio Ermotti as permanent boss within the next days or weeks, sources tell The Post.

Ermotti, a 51-year-old Swiss native who’s only been at UBS since April, was named interim chief executive after his predecessor Oswald Gruebel’s stunning resignation on Saturday.

Ermotti and investment banking boss Carsten Kengeter are both viewed as possible heirs.

Ermotti is tasked with steering the Swiss giant, which has a big presence in New York, in the aftermath of a train wreck caused by an unauthorized trading loss that has left a $2.3 billion hole in its balance sheet.

One plan is making the Swiss bank a smaller operation focused more on investment banking as an afterthought to its business that manages trillions for the world’s uber-rich.

The decision to tap Ermotti occurred as early as Friday after Gruebel, 67, handed in his resignation to the bank’s board of directors, sources said. He had earlier said he had no such plans.

However, some sources said, Gruebel, hired in 2009 to restore UBS’s battered reputation, felt obliged to give the board a chance to make a choice.

Gruebel’s gruff management style also rubbed some of the board the wrong way, said one source. Style aside, Gruebel, who spent nearly four decades at rival Credit Suisse, led UBS to its first profit after the bank found itself saddled with billions in soured mortgage loans during the financial crisis.

The embattled Kengeter was in charge of the bank’s investment bank while the massive trading losses occurred.

Some believe that Kengeter, 44, is still under fire.