Peter Kurer, chairman, UBS
Updated, 12:25
Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Shares in UBS rose 7% when the market opened in Zurich this morning, folowing an announcement by UBS that it expects to have a small profit for the third quarter of 2008 and to be profitable for the whole of 2009.
The bank is holding its third shareholder meeting in a year today, with Chairman Peter Kurer expected to give away little financial information but to say that the bank is focused on ensuring a sound capital base. It will come at a high price, it appears: “UBS is to cut between 1,900 and 2,000 jobs from the investment banking unit’s 19,000 global workforce by the end of this year, according to people with knowledge of the plans,” reports the Financial Times. The job cuts ae expected to come mainly in the bank’s US operations.
UBS has had writedowns of $44 billion since the start of the global financial crisis and some analysts fear it may need to take another $5bn writedown. It will announce Q3 results 4 November.
An interested participant in the proceedings is Arnold Luqman, former UBS head and a founding partner of Olivant, a UK-based financial firm, who says he is unable to vote at today’s meeting. In August Luqman, who has been sharply critical of UBS in recent months, commended Kurer and his board for strategic planning improvements they have made; he mentioned his company’s 2.78% holding in UBS ordinary share capital. Yesterday, 1 October, the company issued a statement confirming that its previously mentioned “interest” in obtaining 2.78% of shares in the bank, held by Lehmann Brothers, continues: “Olivant Limited is evaluating the position of its interest in UBS and is in contact with the administrators to secure these assets.” The shares disappeared when Lehmann went bankrupt in September. An added complication in finding them has been the sudden death of Olivant’s founding partner and chief operating officer Kirk Stephenson, who was killed by a train in England24 September. (background, Reuters and Bloomberg, 1 October)
News story, GenevaLunch, 2 October 2008.
Filed under: Business
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One Response to “UBS heads back to profitability, could cut more jobs”
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:43 am
[...] Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - UBS announced Friday morning, following its Extraordinary General Meeting Thursday, that as part of its efforts to get the bank back to profitability it is cutting 2,000 jobs in its [...]