UBS said Northern Trust is buying fund services units of UBS in Luxembourg and Switzerland, on Monday. The company did not announce the financial terms of the deal.
The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2017, subject to applicable regulatory and fund board approvals and other customary closing conditions.
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 bank UBS reported net income of 738 million Swiss francs (US$736 million) in the fourth quarter, compared with 949 million a year earlier, due in part to tax effects, but says rising investor confidence in the United States could boost its wealth management business.
"Despite a very challenging market environment in 2016, we achieved solid results, thanks to our balanced business and geographic mix, as well as our strong focus on executing our strategy," said CEO Sergio Ermotti.
UBS also recorded more than 1 billion francs in negative income due to cash-flow hedges, citing a drop in unrealized gains from hedging derivatives as long-term interest rates increased.
Hong Kong’s stock market regulator has filed a lawsuit against major banks Standard Chartered and UBS along with consultancy firm KPMG over a 2009 initial public offering on the city’s bourse.
On Monday, the Securities and Futures Commission sued UBS, Standard Chartered and others over their role in the 2009 IPO of China Forestry, now under liquidation. The case, involving two global finance brands, serves both as an easy win for prosecutors and a way to send a message to listing sponsors – including Chinese banks that now dominate the city’s IPO market.
Swiss bank UBS has failed to persuade the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to overturn an order that it must post €1.1 billion bail in a French case about whether it helped clients avoid tax.
UBS had argued before the ECHR that the record-setting bond, a guarantee against an eventual fine upon conviction, violated its right to the presumption of innocence and it took the unusual step of going to the human rights court in 2015.
The Strasbourg court said on Thursday it had unanimously rejected UBS’s application to challenge the order.
Morgan Stanley and UBS Group are planning to raise their stakes in their securities operations in the country to the maximum 49% allowed, people with direct knowledge of the moves said, Reuters reported on Monday.
China allowed foreign banks to boost share holdings in securities joint ventures to a maximum 49% in 2012 from the previous cap of a third to help modernise the country’s capital markets.
Foreign investments banks with securities joint ventures in China, however, have not as yet raised their stakes as most of the ventures were small or struggling to break even due to sluggish onshore deals.
The UBS trading floor in Stamford, Connecticut, US, once the world’s largest, had more than 5,000 traders slamming phones and kicking trash cans and now it is up for sale, according to a person with knowledge of the offering, as Bloomberg reported.
UBS, which had owned the building, is responsible for its maintenance until its lease expires at the end of next year, the person said.
Fast forward to today and the near-vacant building, larger than a football field (approximately 720,000-square-foot), has been put on the sale block, since the Swiss bank hasn’t been able to restock its trader ranks after the 2008 financial crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported.
UBS Group is cutting nearly two dozen jobs in its Asian investment banking business, mainly in Hong Kong and Singapore, as part of a push to slash costs, people with direct knowledge of the matter said, as Reuters reported.
UBS in Hong Kong declined to comment to the newswire. The cuts are likely to hit mid-level staff hardest, but will also include several bankers at the rank of Managing Director.
Reuters reported last month that Standard Chartered is set to cut about a tenth of its global corporate and institutional banking headcount across all the major business centres starting with Singapore and Hong Kong, as the bank steps up an aggressive drive to cut costs.
