Private Equity

How can investors "win" in this current economic climate

The new head of UBS Switzerland, Martin Blessing, told Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung that he expects interest rates across Europe to remain low for the next 12-18 months. Consequently, Blessing cast doubt on rival Credit Suisse’s 2018 target of 2.3 billion Swiss francs ($2.32 billion) at its Swiss business, saying that "to reach such a goal, the market environment would have to change dramatically."

And, over job places, he added that huge cuts jobs aren’t scheduled; however, Blessing said that probably in the next few years there will be a slight drop in the number of employees.

Swiss private banking group Julius Baer reported Monday that its fiscal 2016 net profit attributable to shareholders, on IFRS basis, increased by 411 percent to 619 million Swiss francs. Earnings rose by 414% to 2.85 franc per share.

The prior-year period’s results included provision of $547.25 million or 521 million francs for a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice or DOJ regarding the legacy U.S. cross-border business.

Russia’s biggest bank, Sberbank, has recently announced a launch of a robot lawyer which will be assigned a task to process letters of complaints. The innovation will axe approximately 3000 specialists currently working in the bank structure, according to a report by TASS agency, citing Sberbank’s Deputy CEO Vadim Kulik.

On the sidelines of the annual Gaidar Forum, Kulik announced robot lawyer was launched in Q4 of 2016, with full robotization to be completed in the first months of 2017. “It means that approximately 3000 specialists who have been processing letters of complaints will be freed from performing this particular task. We have quite ambitious plans. We are planning to launch robot lawyers in a range of fields", he added.

Credit Suisse Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam sees market conditions improving during 2017 as the bank’s reorganization gathers pace and its efficiency drive continues.

Thiam told Bloomberg TV in an interview from Davos on Tuesday that "After a year in 2016 where you saw revenues really go down (across the sector)…hopefully 2017 will be better but all this is markets permitting," he said.

"We have seen across the world the benefits of globalization…but we have also seen the tensions. The cracks in the system which then found a political translation," said the CEO of Switzerland’s second-largest bank.

Half of the Swiss people, exactly 54%, are satisfied for their financial and economic situation, for 8% the opinion is negative and 38% maintained a neutral attitude, according to the survey by the consulting firm EY at the end of 2016.

The values differ only slightly from the previous year (respectively 54%, 6% and 40%). But, considering only young people up to 35 years, the level of satisfaction is strongly decreased (from 61% to 46%) in a year while people dissatisfied (from 4% to 18%) grew.

According Gröli Martin, head of consumer sector at EY Switzerland, the latter figure is worrying. "The results show that many young people are dissatisfied with their current situation, in particular of their income and financial expenses," it said in a statement today.

Morgan Stanley is cutting its global bonus pool for the equities division by as much as 4% and dismissing some employees after the industry’s results flagged last year, people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

Morgan Stanley, which ranked fourth for investment banking fees last year, cut more than 20 managing directors from its investment banking division globally, representing about 5% of the total, the sources said.

First International Bank of Israel is liquidating its remaining international business, and will become the only one of Israel’s five leading banks that operates exclusively in Israel. Controlled by Zadik Bino, the bank announced that it had signed an agreement to sell FIBI Switzerland to Swiss bank CBH.

CBH will acquire FIBI Switzerland’s customer portfolio, which totaled 876 million Swiss Franc as of September 30, for seven million Swiss francs, amounting to 0.8% of the assets. CBH will also pay an amount equal to FIBI Switzerland’s equity, which totaled 59.2 million Swiss francs as of September 30. The deal is slated for completion by the end of the first quarter of 2017.