Robert McCann, the new head of UBS Wealth Management Americas, laid out more specific targets for the struggling division at a UBS Investor Day conference today in Zurich, saying that he wants to hit nearly $1 billion in pre-tax profit.

In his presentation, McCann said he was aiming for pre-tax profit of more than CHF1 billion ($984 million) for the unit in the medium term. In the third quarter it posted a pre-tax profit of CHF 110 million ($108 million) following two straight quarterly losses.  McCann made the pronouncements a week after he announced the appointment of a “renewal team.”

At the conference, McCann emphasized that he wanted to use the unit’s relatively small size to its advantage. UBS currently has 7,286 advisors, compared to over 18,000 at the new mega-firm Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. McCann said UBS’ size allows it to be large enough to be relevant but it’s also small enough to be agile. He also believes UBS advisors can focus more on providing advice to ultra-high-net-worth and high-net-worth clients. McCann said many of the firm’s competitors talk about being advice-led but in reality remain product distributors.

McCann listed the challenges for the division as being advisor retention, recruitment and attracting new assets. Last quarter, the unit saw net asset outflows of $9.6 billion.

Scott Smith, senior analyst at Cerulli Associates, says McCann’s focus on wealthy clients makes sense, if it’s executed properly. “UBS has tremendous resources to service these clients but its advisor force is also small enough that they don’t have to settle for a lot of mid-tier brokers,” he says.

UBS lost a net 653 advisors last quarter (including 368 who were in branches sold to Stifel Nicolaus) and has yet to unveil a recruitment package to rival those being offered by Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.

Smith expects them to offer a similar deal to those firms in the near future, and doesn’t think they will have a problem recruiting, despite the firm’s recent troubles. “Memories are short in this business,” Smith says. “MSSB has a lot of integration work to do and Bank of America/Merrill Lynch is having trouble even getting someone to interview for their CEO spot. UBS has its own mountains to climb, but it’s not alone.”