Article: UBS Filled with No Revenue MDs who Need to Move on
eFinancial Careers article:
UBS cut some underperformers already this month. More cuts are coming next week
by Sarah Butcher14 May 20252 minute read
As expected, UBS is pruning headcount. Insiders say that a round of cuts happened in London a few weeks ago, but that more are coming next week.
Separately, the most recent round of departures is understood to have included Tim Ramskill, Credit Suisse's former head of EMEA Securities research. Ramskill spent 14 years at Credit Suisse before becoming global head of product management at UBS in 2023. He's gone two years later.
Insiders at the bank say there was an array of other recent cuts in the investment banking business but that they mostly included poor performing juniors and "directors who wouldnever make MD."
It's not clear who will be hit by next week's headcount removals, but ex-Credit Suisse people have voiced apprehension after they claim to have been unfairly marked down in recent appraisals.
UBS ingested around 200 managing directorsfrom Credit Suisse's investment bank in 2023. However, its new bankers haven't driven revenues substantially higher and underperformed rivals like Deutsche Bank in the first quarter. One senior insider said the investment banking team is still overstaffed with managing directors "who need to move on" and are not generating fees.
The Swiss bank said last month that it intends to cut a further $8bn of costs before the end of 2026. There will be plenty of people jolted out of the bank yet.
I work with several there and they are dreadful
UBS has entire groups in the US with literally zero deal flow over the past 12 months. Pretty sure Tech, RELL, and M&T as a collective have zero fee-generating MD's. Even "good" UBS groups such as LevFin/Sponsors/Industrials have bloat at the senior level and are heavily carried by a few good MD's in each group (other groups such as HC and CR have some good MD's and a lot of useless ones as well), but I would assume the targets of these cuts are going to be the useless groups.
Tech and M&T are finally seeing the consequences of their failures with a lot of associate and mid-level departures in recent weeks. Avoid at all costs
I just left UBS. Going to be a little intentionally vague. Some of what's posted on these incessant threads is inaccurate or sounds like someone who's mad and ranting. Here is what is true: the firm is underperforming the pre-CS market share level. We've been pitching and not winning. On the positive, the culture at least in my group is good, but there are lots of just little things that aren't squared away. CS was squared away. Little things like the comp files or how the standard pages get built aren't as sharp and organized as how CS did things.
By no means is the firm going under, but it's probably going back to what UBS was before the merger, meaning technically a global BB but just kinda sorta. I'm not a prestige uber alles kind of guy so it's less about that and more about I didn't feel I was getting adequate experience and growth, and I also wouldn't be shocked to see more layoffs.
This has been my experience as well. On a whole the bank’s culture is solid which doesnt come across here because all the posts are about how TMT culture is bad. Most groups at UBS have decent to somewhat above average culture and work life balance at roughly street BB comp
WLB for me was actually pretty good, but again, I'm being intentionally vague here - my sector is in a big bull run and we were not able to capitalize on it. I don't like saying that since I personally enjoyed working with the people on my team and they're good people, but at the end of the day, it's business not personal. As far as other teams having culture problems, I can't speak to that because I simply don't know.
If all I wanted to do was marketing all day, I’d go work at an ad agency.
That’s what UBS TMT has become
Missed on the big cable deal announced today. Not surprising but given the deal size will really hurt our market share for the year to not have any role on it
Are you talking about Charter and Cox?
-ozzy osbourne gonna technical analysis himself straight out of all deals
First Boston spin-off please. We need that.
Would be Second Boston, because one they already tried first Boston and second they’ll finish second in most bake offs
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