ZURICH, Aug 17 Reuters UBS has appointed or confirmed 21 country heads across the Europe, Middle East, and Africa EMEA region, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters on Thursday.

Five of the positions will be filled by employees from recently acquired Credit Suisse, the memo sent to employees by executive board member Beatriz Martin said.

The heads of Portugal, Guernsey, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are from the Swiss bank39;s former rival.

UBS also appointed Daniel Lonnborg as Head of Nordics and Tarek Eido as Head of Qatar. Henri Mills, the current head of France, will now also lead Belgium.

The announcement comes as UBS undertakes the mammoth task of integrating Credit Suisse, which it took over in a rescue orchestrated by Swiss authorities earlier this year after Switzerland39;s No. 2 bank collapsed.

UBS is expected to axe around 30 of its combined workforce, which has expanded to 120,000 after the merger, with Credit Suisse39;s investment bank, back office, and its Swiss retail bank likely taking the biggest hit.

Reporting by Noele Illien; editing by Jason Neely and Devika Syamnath

Source Reuters