UBS industrials banker Knapp leaves for Blackstone: sources

UBS' global head of industrial investment banking has left the firm to join The Blackstone Group's advisory business, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Karl Knapp was also a vice chairman at UBS, which is working to revamp its investment banking business after a number of high profile departures over the last few years.

UBS Chief Executive Sergio Ermotti hired Andrea 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 Swiss bank cut its overall bonus pool for 2012 by 7 percent to 2.5 billion francs and introduced a scheme under which bankers can be paid in a form of deferred financial instruments that are revoked if the bank's capital targets are not met.

Knapp and UBS could not be immediately reached for comment.

(Reporting By Michael Erman and Soyoung Kim; Editing by Kenneth Barry)