Wealth arm bears brunt of UBS cuts

UBS’s core Swiss and international wealth management businesses are to bear the brunt of the job losses that should help the Swiss group save SFr4bn ($3.5bn) a year by the end of 2010.

Some 4,000 jobs will go in the wealth management and Swiss bank division, the group’s biggest unit, and 2,500 in wealth management for the Americas. Together, the cuts will account for about 65 per cent of the bank’s 10,000 planned job losses.

Investment banking, which has already lost about 5,000 jobs since the peak of the credit boom, will lose 2,500 more positions, while 500 posts will go in each of global asset management and the corporate centre.

The details came as UBS confirmed it lost SFr1.98bn in the first quarter, in line with estimates given to shareholders last month. The poor result came in spite of stronger markets that helped Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank achieve surprisingly robust earnings in the period.

UBS remained wary, in spite of a rebound in equities, warning that credit markets improved only partly and trading in complex financial products remained illiquid. “The markets continue to be unsettled, and we remain cautious on the immediate outlook for UBS,” the bank said.

“The real economy has continued to deteriorate and this is expected to have negative implications for credit-related provisioning in coming quarters.”

Investment banking accounted for most of the damage, with a pre-tax loss of SFr3.16bn after writedowns and credit losses of about SFr3.9bn, including a SFr1.95bn writedown on credit default protection from monoline insurers. A SFr1.02bn hit came from credit losses, largely on leveraged financing. Earnings were helped by a SFr651m gain on the value of the bank’s own debt.

Wealth management outside the US and banking in Switzerland made pre-tax profits of SFr1.08bn, in spite of SFr23.4bn in net outflows of client money. UBS said flows had been positive initially, but turned sharply negative after a partial settlement of investigations by the US authorities on alleged tax evasion prompted withdrawals.

John Cryan, finance chief, implied business had stabilised last month as the group avoided any more bad publicity.

UBS’s tier one capital ratio – a measure of financial strength – stood at 10.5 per cent at the end of March. UBS shares rose 2.3 per cent to SFr16.07.