Article: UBS's TMT bankers have their own special woes
Full article on efinancialcareers
“Once upon a time, UBS had a world-class Technology, Media, and Telecommunications (TMT) investment banking team. This no longer seems to be the case.”
“But its TMT team may have more issues than most. Market intelligence firm Dealogic says that in the last six years, the market share of UBS's TMT business has gone from 7.4% to 1.9%. UBS's TMT banking revenues went from $751m to $187m over that period.”
“The decline coincides with a period of churn in which some of UBS's top TMT bankers left while others arrived. In total, UBS is thought to have lost at least seven senior leaders from its TMT team in the past four years. At least 20 were hired in turn”
“The question now is whether the recent hires can revive TMT's fortunes. Some UBS insiders have also raised questions about multiple hires in the Menlo Park office, where UBS has added at least five people since 2021, without seemingly achieving an increase in market share.”
“There is suspicion that the Menlo Park office is a formality and that its senior bankers enjoy working from home.”
This data looks like it’s worldwide revenue. If you were to do just America’s revenue I’m sure it would look even more insane
theres no way Americas TMT has anywhere close to those levels of revenue - im talking like sub 10mm in M&A fees a year (I believe one year was zero), with their financings its probably like 25mil a year
They just can’t do anything right
It’s a train wreck and wso can’t look away
Sense is that UBS keeps hiring MDs who don’t have books. You can’t lose senior rainmakers and expect to plug the gap with potentially some who may have never personally sourced real bottom line driving blockbuster deals. They've built out headcount but not coverage.
The team looks stacked with expensive MDs who haven’t been able to stop the franchise’s decline. Until they stop hiring from the Barclays network, yes this also includes non-Barclays bankers connected to those MDs on the team, and start focusing on who can actually deliver mandates, this is going to keep spiraling.
The Maple Leafs of finance but if the Leafs never made the playoffs and kept getting worse every season.
Feel bad for the interns
Rumor has it the Menlo Park office is empty most days. Waste of money on rent to appease the MDs
Obviously so they could work from home most days. It’s great to be an MD
I'm a former UBS NY banker and this is the first time I've actually heard of us having a Menlo Park office so interpret that how you will on how much volume they do
Based on brokercheck it looks like it’s just a handful of senior bankers badged to the office, that’s also used by non IB coverage UBS groups
Ex-UBS now in buyside:
UBS NY Tech only does LCM and ECM stuff and is candidly not very strong deal flow wise. It has exited very well relative to UBS/deal flow despite that largely because of historic reputation. UBS SF both has no deal flow nor historic reputation nor exits. The only positive for that group is that it's not M&T. Heard from people who got put into M&T post-split that the group works 80+ hours a week on average despite somehow having even less deal flow than UBS Tech.
A bigger issue that isn’t being talked about enough: UBS LevFin has essentially collapsed. They just posted their worst quarter fee-wise in recent memory, despite having nearly twice the headcount (at least in the US; distinctly remember them always having postings open for laterals) compared to last year. Does anyone know what happened there? I thought they were a top LevFin bank. Similarly, Sponsor's fees for UBS have fallen drastically, and Industrials haven't had any marquee transactions since last year (+ has lost global head and a top rainmaker). All the supposed "good" groups at UBS (as per this forum) seem dead.
UBS overall seems to be struggling. Aside from the Walgreens–Sycamore deal, Celsius, there’s been a glaring lack of marquee activity. As someone in Tech, I know UBS is still involved in a few upcoming IPOs with S-1s out, so maybe ECM in the Americas is holding up, but it's pretty clear that LevFin and M&A are in rough shape.
All the good ones left. Ranson, Palombini, Lipkind left long ago, then good coverage side MDs were leaving also. Elolampi from family office coverage left and the GWIM support to IB was one of UBS's big selling points. Blaming high interest rates is kind of a cop out since other banks are still making things happen.
Combining sponsors and M&A doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I think sponsors and LevFin were together under the old CS regime and that kind of makes sense, but sponsors coverage and M&A together almost sound like they're throwing in the towel on public to public M&A, that or they just don't know what they're doing.
I genuinely enjoyed the people I worked with at UBS, but I also had concerns about the longevity of my career there. I'd like to see them do well, no ill will, but I'm honestly not sure what their turnaround plans are, if they have such a plan.
Global Banking revenue was down 22% YoY as of Q2. Bonus pool is going to be so small especially post guaranteed payouts and because overall GB HC is higher than ever in recent memory. GB may not even reach $2B in revenue this year.
LevFin and GIG groups are both severely impaired after departures and those groups were the only decent ones to begin with.
ECM is the only group where revenue are up materially but thats not nearly enough to offset all the other coverage groups and M&A continuing with their usual pathetic run rate. Can’t rely on TMT, RELL, HC, C&R to amount to anything more than covering their own costs.
UBS ECM revenue is only up because the broader market is finally picking up. Well, that and because they were leads on the NIQ IPO, those fees by themselves are probably greater than their nearly non-existent previous ECM deal flow. They are also sometimes passive bookrunners on stuff, but that's something almost every bank gets. They aren't even on the Figma IPO. All just reads like it's the doings of a rainmaker (again, not at UBS; so not sure who. However, only having one major deal and not even being passive bookrunners on everything else certainly suggests that it was all because one or two singular good bankers only).
Yes this is correct. ECM is not good but its coming off such a low revenue year that at least its up YoY. Group is still underperforming as well.
M&A pipeline is one big nothing. Only chance at things picking up by YE is if the bank gets a lucky big win or two from Sponsors.
Saying one banker is good because they got on 1 IPO deal in the 2/3 seat is comical, but the state of play for the team
I doubt TMT is able to cover their costs with that many guarantees, especially on a risk weighted basis
Tech covered their costs off of NIQ and Healthedge alone, probably (should be 15-20MM in fees given titles on both assuming they were 2nd bank on Healthedge and 2/3 on NIQ IPO). Not a very strong team, though, strangely has 2/3 or so marquee deals of UBS this year. UBS has been consistently poor across all its products/teams. Tech is also the largest sector, so that's more of a sign of UBS as a whole sucking than tech being good just to be clear (UBS tech does not have good flow; not sure any UBS team does at this point). I don't think M&T has done anything except some ASTS ECM stuff; they probably have not covered their cost basis, despite that group being one of the longest hours at UBS.
Insane that like 80% of the comments are written and then SB’d by probably a single guy, jesus
Has been the case in 95% of the UBS threads, dude and friends usually have decency to switch to alts sometimes when posting. He is 100% someone who got laid off from UBS Tech and is pissed at the world/Barclays people based on all the commentary. This level of obsession is not normal.
UBS TMT lost over 80% of their business, while acquiring a CS and 20+ new MDs. The real obsession is pretending that’s normal.
Saw the list of names of hires from the article and I don’t recognize any of the names
New level of bad if they are writing articles on how ineffective the team has been
A lot of the names in the article seem to be bank of america castoffs?
Nostrum quam et eum quo. Voluptatibus voluptatum repellat dolore voluptatem nobis amet et. Eligendi nihil ut quis possimus. Omnis fuga voluptates vel consequatur. Dolor possimus doloribus accusantium odit.
Corrupti ut laboriosam et unde. Ea ipsa iusto vitae illum maiores. Est error ducimus eum. Ratione nemo ut est perspiciatis quidem iure soluta. Necessitatibus hic veritatis eos.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Sed magnam quod magnam accusamus. Soluta enim voluptatum officia architecto natus perspiciatis saepe ratione.
Praesentium rem magnam et nihil. Culpa quaerat sit fuga autem repudiandae. Sit aut sed rerum soluta laboriosam.
Qui itaque vel et magni harum doloremque. Corrupti facere voluptas dolor odit ut est.
Error corporis et facere minus quod voluptates eum. Vel deleniti rerum quae incidunt perspiciatis voluptatem et. Est veritatis laboriosam asperiores.