Shouldn't the firm be positioned in a better place in the U.S. sphere in 3-4 years after the dust from CS dies down? Never really interacted with the firm but given the commotion on here as of late figured it would be good to bring up
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yes - if anything it is worse thats how its portrayed here
Agreed since we can only speak vaguely here
Would you guys take Nomura over UBS?
Yes
Yeah much worse unfortunatly
Run a poll and youll find out quickly that it is
YES
Working for UBS Investment Banking is a financial torture chamber designed by sadists. Every morning at 4 AM, my phone explodes with 87 "urgent" emails from managing directors who apparently never sleep, eat, or experience human emotions. My standing desk is actually a medieval rack that slowly stretches my spine while I try to load Excel models but just end up crashing my computer for 3 hours straight due to the geniuses at UBS IT. The pitch books I slave over for 72 consecutive hours get completely redesigned THREE MINUTES before client meetings because someone suddenly decided Frutiger 45 Light was "too aggressive" as a font or the shade of UBS red wasn't "confident enough." My diet consists exclusively of lukewarm delivery food eaten at 2 AM while frantically fixing decimal points in Excel sheets that stretch to column ZZZ. All for internal analysis that will never see the light of day of course, because we don’t do live deals here. During my "performance review," my toxic director praised my 130-hour workweek as showing "moderate commitment" and suggested I could "step up my game" by learning to exist without sleep entirely. I've forgotten what sunlight looks like, my girlfriend has replaced me with a cardboard cutout (an upgrade, she said), and my bloodstream is now 87% espresso and 13% antacids. The "work-life balance" they promised in the interview turned out to be responding to pings on Microsoft Teams on my phone while in the bathroom taking a dump during my cousin's wedding! And pay is below street and I'm pretty sure my bonus will be paid in expired sandwiches from the cafeteria in 1285.
Dude what group are you lmao
This is nuts
TMT 😌
It could be M&T/Tech/FIG, the fact that you can't know goes to show the cultural rot of the firm. The terrible groups at UBS really bad culturally and flow-wise.
This sounds a lot like what I’ve read about the Tech group here. Sweaty, miserable, and being constantly mistreated/abused, without the hope of closing deals to keep you going
UBS insider confirmed
Ah geez man I’m sorry to hear this. Two follow up questions - given this is tech, is this mainly west coast or is this NY too? And do you have any insight into other groups not mentioned here? Namely IND M&A etc? Thanks for your help
“130+ hours? I would never make you work that, it just seems like you could be more efficient” -Useless hardo director who everyone hates
The shade of UBS red isn't confident enough 💀💀
In what world does any sane person think that should matter???
50 shades of red
bet the cardboard got better game than you
Just look at the leauge tables; it's gone down from 2023 when it was a combined entity. that's not by mistake. UBS has various groups and seniors that have bought $0 in fees, essentially dragging the bank down heavily. The tech group for instance, has brought in roughly $100MM in EV over the past year. That's more in line with the expectations of the worst group for an MM platform than a supposed bulge bracket. There is widespread nepotism where the only hires are people from Barclays that leadership likes and again none of these new hires have led to deals, just increased cost centers leading to people getting lower bonuses and even some getting fired in a cost-cutting effort because the firm seemingly is not able to figure out that the problem isn't the groups bringing in revenue but the ones bringing in no revenue. Some groups are also political messes, and that is reflected in the senior leaving there; for example, FIG has lost a ton of its good seniors ,and the entire insurance sub-vertical has resigned/been fired from internal drama amongst seniors.
With that being said, it's not like the firm is Nomura or TD; it's, at worst, a t15 M&A bank and is t10 in various sectors and products such as LevFin, Sponsors, and Industrials. The HC and CR teams also have some flow, though HC does a ton of MM work and CR basically does whale hunting, both of which are strategies that lead to very sweaty but at least deal work. The bank is, I believe, in the top 10 in YTD M&A in the US and somewhere in the 10-12 range for LTM as of last week or so when I last checked Bloomberg and Deal Logic. Although it's declining, it is absurdly misleading and a sign of how frustrated some of these juniors are in the really toxic groups that anyone would ever suggest picking Nomura or TD over it.
Would you pick DB over UBS?
For sure I’d pick DB
Covered in thread below: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/investment-banking/ubs-vs-deutsche-bank-for-sa-2026?page=0#comment-3602705
To summarize, UBS is currently a stronger franchise by LTM and YTD metrics, but not by a big margin. Both banks are roughly the same tier and pick based on whom you enjoyed interacting with more. Will note that DB is having a weak Q1 2025 but comparatively stronger Q4 2024, and UBS had a weak Q4 2024 but has a comparatively stronger Q1 2025 (the first quarter it has been top 10 in M&A volume since the CS merger, I believe). Skews the data a bit on the YTD angle, as DB is currently in the 30s for YTD. LTM is still probably the best and most widely used metric to determine deal flow between firms, for which UBS is a few spots higher but not significantly higher and roughly in the same tier as DB.
Will also note that UBS top groups are stronger than DB top ones and the UBS bottom ones are weaker than the DB bottom ones. Although overall M&A for LTM has ended up similar, their way to getting their is very different. DB has had deals from various sectors, meaning its deal flow is far more varied across groups, whilst UBS has various groups such as M&T and Tech, although large parts of the broader M&A market have contributed nothing to its M&A volume.
anyone working at ubs nyc in this thread could pm me their hr email? ty in advance
Sure here you go: [email protected]
[email protected]
It is a horrible bank. If you want to go into wealth management though, it's good.
YES but in all caps
Guessing UBS being horrible is more of a US thing than EU? Or is it equally awful in London/Europe?
It's a t10 franchise in Europe, just outside the top 10 in the US, and much stronger in Asia + LatAm by league tables in M&A. UBS is fundamentally an wealth management business though not an investment bank.
Is the culture at UBS in Europe as bad as US? Or is the culture also better?
If you don't have insight into the matter, that's okay. Just curious!
By all measures their IB division has fallen off completely. Rare scenario of "dis-synergies" with Credit Suisse lol. Their focus is largely on their asset management business which is now massive post-acquisition, with IB being very neglected. Not an insider but it seems like fundamentally the C-suite have shifted the focus away from IBD to focus on their buy-side. I will caveat that in Europe they aren't doing as badly as in the US, the firm is just struggling to cope with the sheer size post acquisition.
Fallen off completely is an insane claim. I don't understand what data people are looking at to make such claims, it's a stronger firm post-CS-merger than pre. Just because some teams suck doesn't mean the whole franchise has declined. We are not talking about toxic cultures in select teams, but the overall strength of the firm which UBS has improved on.
UBS was ~15th in LTM US Leauge Tables and falling off much quicker than they are now pre-merger. By M&A league tables. the firm is improving - Q1 2025 was the first quarter in years where it's been top 10 for a quarter in the M&A league tables, and it's 11th or so in the LTM league tables, both of which are better than pre-CS merger. Both of these are higher rankings than it was pre-CS merger. Globally speaking, the firm was outside the t10 in M&A, now it's well within and somewhere in the middle of that range even with a relatively weak America team. Just check in with Bloomberg or Deal Logic or MergerMarket, so much talk of just pure vibes in threads like this that are misleading at best.
Typical UBS intern who will argue the firm has better deal flow than EBs
You get one Walgreens $10bn buy side petty cred and all of a sudden brag about it like you are GS.
Very far from the top in the Americas, maybe even outside top 20, and this is a mostly Americas thread
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