It should have been a day of smiles for Oswald Grübel, UBS’s chief executive. In the second full quarter of results since he arrived in February, the bank that was among the biggest European casualties of the credit crisis showed further signs of rehabilitation.

Underlying profitability, excluding one-offs such as accounting changes on the value of UBS’s own debt, built on the progress made in the second quarter, with an underlying pre-tax profit of SFr1.56bn ($1.51bn).