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Editorial: will UBS sell its Asia investment banking unit?

Date: 13 Feb 2009

The bank needs to make money and fast to placate its shareholders as well as the Swiss government. Were UBS to put its highly rated investment banking operations up for sale, its Asia-Pacific unit would be sure to attract the interest of rivals with regional aspirations. Standard Chartered, HSBC and Barclays spring to mind.

Keywords (click to search): [Opinion] [UBS] [investment banking] [sell] [Asia]

Richard Morrow

As Switzerland’s two biggest banking groups announced their annual reports for the most dismal financial year in living memory, the news looked uniformly depressing.

UBS was first, announcing a fourth quarter loss of SFr8.1 billion (US$6.98 billion) on February 10, taking its yearly loss to a record SFr19.7 billion. Its rival Credit Suisse fared slightly better but also wallowed heavily in the red, announcing a SFr6.02 billion loss in the last quarter of 2008 and a SFr8.2 billion loss for the full year.

As a result, both banks have little choice but to keep cutting costs. Credit Suisse said in December that it would shed 5,300 jobs. UBS, when releasing its latest results, announced that a further 2,000 jobs would go in investment banking by the end of 2009. The bank is reportedly closing three of its regional units: fixed income proprietary trading,...

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