UBS redundancies

UBS To Terminate 10,000, Or One Sixth Of Its Employees

 

Zero Hedge,

24 October, 2012

There is down-sizing; there is trimming-the-fat; and then there is UBS. The once-giant Swiss Bank just announced it will cut up to 10,000 jobs. This comes on top of the 3,500 from last year - which makes a rather dramatic weight-loss strategy for the 63,500 employee firm. As the FT reports, they will not happen all at once (so just after the election then?) but will lead to the closure of a sizable part of UBS' fixed-income trading operations (and other capital intensive areas of the investment bank).

Perhaps in the understatement of the day: "There were several options on the table but UBS has decided on the most radical one," a person familiar commented as the plan is hoped to reduce complexity and costs - so no more Bloomberg Terminals?

One thing surely gone is a source of fixed income axes: "The new strategy, hammered out in several executive board meetings in New York this week and set to be announced next Tuesday, will lead to the closure of a sizeable part of UBS’s fixed-income trading operations and other capital-intensive areas of the investment bank."

The winner: Goldman of course, which in a world of collapsing trading revenues has taken to Lehmaning its competition once again, only this time not using brute force but the far more classical war of attrition in a collapsing economy.

Via FT:

UBS is set to unveil a radical downsizing of its struggling investment bank next week in a move that will prompt the loss of up to 10,000 jobs across the Swiss banking group.

Switzerland’s largest bank by assets will significantly shrink the trading side and complexity of its investment bank and as a consequence also cut thousands of jobs in its back office over the next few years, three people close to the situation said.

The job cuts will amount to almost a sixth of the bank’s workforce of 63,500 at the end of June. They will not happen all at once and the precise number is still unclear as the exact impact on back-office functions has not yet been determined.

It comes on top of another – still ongoing – programme announced last year to cut 3,500 jobs.

The move highlights how banks around the world are trying to adapt to a radically changed regulatory and market environment that has left them with lower returns and much higher capital needs for certain business areas and national subsidiaries.

The new strategy, hammered out in several executive board meetings in New York this week and set to be announced next Tuesday, will lead to the closure of a sizeable part of UBS’s fixed-income trading operations and other capital-intensive areas of the investment bank.

....
 

“There were several options on the table but UBS has decided on the most radical one,” one person familiar with the plan said.