Is UBS IB doomed and will it ever recover?
The state of UBS investment banking is nothing short of catastrophic. Post-merger with Credit Suisse, the firm is plagued by bloated groups, weak coverage, and a culture that has deteriorated significantly. The lack of effective Managing Directors who can bring in deals is glaring, with poor connections, overreliance on unproductive tasks, and inability to utilize junior resources effectively. It’s astonishing how UBS has managed to combine the worst elements of both itself and Credit Suisse, leading to embarrassing league table rankings that seem to get worse every day. Moreover, UBS faces extreme capital requirements, with Swiss regulators pushing for a 50% increase, which could severely impact its competitiveness.
MV’s leadership has not addressed the core issues, and the cultural problems persist. The question remains: where does UBS investment banking go from here? Will it continue to hemorrhage and underperform, or will there be a radical shift in strategy?
Given the current trajectory, it’s hard to see UBS investment banking recovering anytime soon. The firm has proposed capping its investment bank at 25% of risk-weighted assets to appease regulators, but this may not be enough to mitigate the impending capital tightening.
Can UBS ever right-size its operations and become competitive again, or is it doomed to be a shadow of its former self? The future looks kind of bleak honestly…
lot of people have left over the past few weeks. many groups thinning out.
The people leaving are all useless, let's be candid here: UBS is one of the single most top-heavy banks in terms of flow on the street. None of the guys who bring in flow have left, the people that have left are mostly net positives in the sense just create more space for new hiring, which for better or worse UBS is still doing at the MD level in focus groups such as HC, CR, and TMT (the CR and HC hires have improved market share for them in the respective spaces not so much TMT, but that's more commentary on firm strategy not what they are actually doing).
They're in bad shape, certain teams esp REGLL in London have 0 dealflow
I don’t think REGL US does any deal flow either
Haha not surprised, would avoid the group anywhere
Another week another thread
Well one thing is for sure, the people on this message board definitely know the answer. You are wise for asking this auspicious group of oracles.
They should honestly sell off the IB as a sacrifice to their swiss overlords
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Opinions on their new Global Head of Media from Guggenheim? Ethan Sawyer
Seems more legit than most UBS hires, no?
As long as he’s not 250lbs or from Barclays they should be ok
If he does nothing then that tracks with the rest of the TMT teams, so no real expectation to do anything
Hopefully he looks at all those UBS bankers who haven’t done deals in years covering media and internet names and cleans house
He’s one small $1-$2 billion dollar deal away from becoming head of TMT in the Americas, since both the Tech or M&T heads seem to have forgotten how to do that at UBS
Well they are old, unmotivated and on guarantees, what do you expect
The merger seems to have left them with teams working on the same stuff and no clear direction. But UBS is huge and can sort things out over time if they bring in strong leaders and simplify the setup.
Another week, another thread, another WSO agreement that: some groups at UBS are terrible, some are meh, and some are decent/good. That is the consensus and has been the consensus for a while on this forum, that people have been supported by data on specific groups. I'm not sure what the point of having another thread of this nature is.
We need to stop discussing UBS until there is a large material change in the state of the business. Every thread is the same commentary, we understand the tech team sucks but no very that doesn't mean every single team has no flow. Any reasonable person with access to an M&A YTD/LTM league table is aware of that fact, and it's also not extremely hard to figure out what the good and bad groups are at UBS, as it has been discussed ad nauseam.
Just to clarify as what I mean by material changes: I do not mean random juniors or shitty MD's leaving, am referring to if any actual good MD leaves (none of your TMT MD's count since none of them bring in flow; there are some relevant MD's who count in other groups such as Sponsors/LevFin/CR/HC/Industrials though who would be fairly transformative downwards for the IB franchise). Nor is brining in new MD's until they deliver a material change btw just to clarify on the other flipside.
This phenomenon is happening at pretty much all of the “lesser” BBs. UBS is slightly worse from the disorganization and disarray after the CS merger. But bloated, top heavy groups of MDs bringing in nothing is very common among the “lesser” BBs (basically all of them outside GS, JP, MS)
I think UBS is a unique instance because of the # of groups and the number of useless MDs. The quality difference of MDs and deal flow at UBS's top groups and bottom groups is a rarity within WS. Industrials and to a lesser extent CR and HC are geuninly competitive in their broader respective coverage areas (though just like all banks some sub-verticals are weak and others are strong), whilst some others groups that are large like TMT or RELL are nowhere near competitive in their broader coverage area or even in any select sub-verticals.
I would be embarrassed if I had UBS TMT banker on my resume as a junior or senior
Agreed. This is largely dependent on the dynamics of these industries. For example, industrials is an area with so much fragmented activity and opportunity, so there’s a “longer tail” in the market share distribution curve. In other words, most banks’ industrial groups are relatively busy because the market share is more widely distributed.
TMT, on the other hand, is more “all or nothing” in terms of market share distribution. The top banks capture most of the M&A share in TMT, the mid tier balance sheet banks essentially just latch on to capital markets fees, and the bottom feeders are nonexistent in the space. As someone mentioned, being a UBS TMT senior banker is a dead end role due to lack of flow.
IMO a lot of banks are investing heavily across all verticals in their practice, but the lesser banks should be more realistic and invest in areas where market share is fragmented and they really have an opportunity. No one is taking the blue chip TMT clients from GS.
UBS not a BB anymore, any knowledgeable person knows this
Not sure why so many downvotes, there's only 6 BBs and UBS isn't one of them presently. It was back in the day, but it isn't even truly a full-service bank in the USA, let alone arguing about what M&A ranking makes a BB I think an even better example is the fact it isn't even truly a full-service bank given that the DCM team at UBS barely exists or does anything of note.
Daily UBS thread, Let's hear from the regulars!
Managing Direction in IB - Gen (Verified, recently fired from UBS) : "UBS is finished"
Intern in IB-M&A (Incoming Intern @ UBS): "actually guys industrials is really good"
Executive Director in IB - Gen (also an Incoming Intern @ UBS): "well uhm.. LEAGUE TABLES!!"
Pretty funny meta commentary although folks have figured out that the exec director is actually likely an ex-UBS ED based on tone
Could be an MD too from how formal it is. He sounds pretty geeky so probably a product guy vs a coverage guy. Kind of reminds me when product guys, especially lev fin, just start blurting out numbers for 30 second straight without context
Just a quick note: based on the content of my posts, it's probably clear I'm not an incoming intern and a senior who was formerly at UBS. That said, I’d really appreciate it if people could avoid speculating about my identity.
There’s a reason I’ve chosen not to verify or reveal groups or past experiences or anything of that sort. Many of my comments have highlighted concerns with UBS’s current leadership, culture, and broader platform direction. While I think it’s important for juniors and prospects to hear those perspectives, I’d prefer to protect my relationships by remaining anonymous. Maybe it's a bit paranoid, but I’d appreciate it if folks could humor me on this. Thanks for understanding.
I will also note that if you read through my posts, I haven't been all that positive on UBS as a whole. I'm more so just trying to paint an honest picture of the decline. It's pretty clear to anyone who is aware of how IB works that UBS clearly isn't a franchise with absolutely no flow like random MMs. I have equally corrected people praising UBS being better than it is, just that it happens way less.
I just MS’d you but have a few questions I want to ask to better understand your logic. Feel free to pass on anything which you think will give away your identity:
1) you’re a former employee. Were you fired or did you leave?
2) did you go to another BB or EB? Why’d you pick here? what’s different to UBS? Is it better?
3) it seems as though your posting has ONLY been to talk negatively about UBS. Are there any redeeming qualities of the bank from your experience?
As somebody who frequently reads on this site, I’m just curious to understand why you feel the need to consistently speak out against UBS whilst wanting to protect your identity. Please share anything else that would be worth knowing.
My only contribution to this is a vibes-based assessment lol.
UBS has been slowly doomed since Blair Effron left in '06 to start Centerview. I'd like to think in an alternate timeline where he doesn't do that a lot of the Centerview infrastructure would have stayed at/gravitated towards UBS, and it would have at least been a relatively better shop at this point.
So many haters
Rumor has it the levfin team’s pipeline across industries is cooked. If true, the entire franchise is done for for 2025. Pack it up boys, lets start getting the 2026 pipeline warm!
Yeah, waiting for Q1 earnings to see how bad GB revenue is looking before I decide if I jump ship.
The first month of Q2 we know is gonna be damn near close to $0
Not sure why the downvotes.
The broader LevFin market is simply dead at the moment. Clearlake (a large and reputable sponsor that has constantly supplied banks with fees throughout the years) can't even raise money to fund its LBO of Dun and Breadstret - had to take a bridge loan. Every single bank's LevFin pipeline is dead because there is simply no demand for HY debt at this moment due to the markets being very uncertain. However, this goes without saying: the weakening of the LevFin markets bodes particularly badly for firms that are stronger in LevFin than other products, such as UBS... which, as a bank, has traditionally relied on Sponsor-led LevFin activity. Expect UBS to do even worse in Q2, especially outside of the few groups that have any corporate clients, which again is like 3 coverage groups at most, maybe 2.
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