D********n 发帖数: 978 | 1 By Elena Logutenkova
Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- UBS AG , Switzerland’s biggest bank,
will aim for a return on equity of between 12 percent and 17
percent starting in 2013 as it shrinks the investment bank to
focus on wealth management.
The Zurich-based bank also plans to pay a dividend of 10
centimes a share for 2011, its first cash payout since before
the start of the financial crisis, it said in a statement
ahead of its investors’ day today. The company plans to reduce
staff at the investment bank by 2,000, or 11 percent, by the
end of 2016.
UBS is scaling down fixed-income businesses at the
investment bank as stricter capital requirements and the
European sovereign debt crisis hurt profitability. Chief
Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti, who took over from Oswald
Gruebel following the discovery of a $2.3 billion loss from
unauthorized trading in September, is responding to investor
pressure to shrink the unit. The bank said today it plans to cut
risk-weighted assets at the division under Basel III rules by
145 billion Swiss francs ($158 billion) from about 300 billion
francs currently.
“Ermotti has to watch out that scaling down doesn’t become
too expensive,” said Dirk Becker , a Frankfurt-based analyst at
Kepler Capital Markets. “It will be pretty painful for all
banks. They all want to get done with asset reductions as soon
as possible, but few are preparing for the fact that many
players will be getting out of many assets at the same time.”
UBS fell 32 percent in Zurich trading so far this year,
compared with a 35 percent decline in the 46-company Bloomberg
Europe Banks and Financial Services Index. |
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