When Swiss bank UBS AG bought out employee shareholders at its Canadian investment banking subsidiary last year, cynics on the Street started watching the calendar. The suspicion was UBS, like most big banks that take control of dealers, would see the talent depart just as soon as their shares vested. It's happened around the world: Many successful deal makers and traders have been bought out a number of times over the course of their careers. In fact, given the mobility of the assets, it's astounding that any buyer is willing to pay a huge premium for investment bankers. But buyers do continue to step up, as the recent acquisitions of Westwind Partners and Orion Securities show. With the final vesting of the two-year-old, $173-million UBS buyout just a few months away, the dealer has made a number of personnel moves that show key individuals at this house are evolving, not departing. Come January, 2008, UBS Canada chief executive officer Jim Estey will move into a rainmaker and mentor role as the investment bank's chairman. He has been with the firm for 27 years, starting on the sales desk when the firm was known as Alfred Bunting & Co. Ltd. (The new European owners keep people in part because they respect the culture enough to still have boardrooms named after Mr. Bunting.) The one notable departure from UBS Canada after the sale was chairman Michael Wilson, the former finance minister who left a few weeks after the 2006 deal with the bank's blessing to become Canada's ambassador to the United States. With Mr. Estey's move, eight-year veteran of the sales desk Rick Meslin steps up to become head of Canadian equities. The UBS corporate finance team continues to be run by Alain Auclair, a corporate finance and M&A specialist who divides his time between Montreal, Toronto and wherever clients need him.