In the latest cost cutting move UBS is set to end its late night meal stipend according to a source. They expect the AI tools they are rolling out to help analysts finish the night earlier and plan on relying more heavily on its international offshore team for late night work.
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Would of loved to trade my free meal for no late night work
fr, if every night ends at 8(?) PM where the dinner stipend cutoff is then would be a great tradeoff
You’re an idiot if you think this is going to change hours at all. This is UBS just getting cheaper and cheaper. Everyone should push back against this; it’s a terrible idea.
HR leaked draft talking points:
1. Start With Acknowledge + Context
Key message: This is a policy standardization and cost discipline decision, not a commentary on analyst performance.
2. Clarify What Is Changing (Be Precise)
Avoid confusion or rumor escalation.
Encourage managers to shut down misinformation early.
3. Reinforce Compensation Framing
Managers should anchor to total comp, not perks.
Do not compare directly to specific competitors unless directed.
4. Avoid Defensive Language
Managers should not say:
Instead say:
5. Manager Behavioral Expectations
Leadership tone matters more than the policy itself.
Encourage managers to:
6. Handling Tough Questions
If asked: “Is UBS cutting costs because IB is underperforming?”
If asked: “Are bonuses going down too?”
If asked: “Why remove something small that impacts juniors most?”
7. Cultural Emphasis
Managers should reinforce:
Frame the value proposition beyond meals.
8. Escalation Protocol
Managers should:
How does that even happen??
Not true, get a job gang
Two different people told me something similar this month. Maybe not end but limit it to 2 times a week or something similar to lower costs
Would do a lot for wlb as less people hanging around for dinner
Can confirm in the work and the team is working on the best messaging approach, saves millions in costs
Shifting more and more cost to the worker
I believe it, they’ve started monitoring it and calling out people who use it every single day like a meal plan
They shouldn’t do this, it would be disastrous for morale and recruiting. Please Marco, don’t do this
UBS leadership wants juniors to go hungry to feed non-revenue generating MDs guaranteed bonuses.
Worse, UBS won’t notice if juniors go hungry
Bullish for UBS recruiting if it comes with no late night work
I don’t know which light groups are advertising UBS as low hours, average for me was sleeping at 1:30-3:30 am every night with most of Sunday (sometimes Saturday) dedicated to work.
This is their attempt to leak it out and gauge the reaction
Trial balloon for sure
del
Thanks Marco, we never doubted you.
#6 in Americas 🔜
More like #26, I’m sure they have to save some money for a couple incremental MD hires
Very cool way to have profitability growth, very cool…
First they took away the blockbuster deals
And nobody said anything because we were “leaning into strategic dialogue” with the right clients
Then they took away the league table rankings
And nobody said anything because we told ourselves quality over quantity
Then they took away the deals
And nobody said anything because at least we still had dinner
Then they took away the dinner
And suddenly the entire analyst class discovered its voice
First they take away the deals
Then they take away the meals
At this pace the 2026 bonus is just going to be a $25 Starbucks gift card and a fireside chat on resilience
Bunch of cheap bastards who charge analysts to use the fucking gym
So meal stipends are technically not paid by UBS they are expensed to the client.
However, if the "live" deals you are on that you expense it to never close you never pass it to the client and UBS eats it. Or, if you are on no live deals at all, its just expensed to a company code in hopes during a big transaction you can finally expense it.
so sort of get it from UBS management in switzerland. many groups dont close any deals at all or having nothing live to work on (tech, M&T), why continue allowing this privilege if you never expense them to clients?
Really, do clients know this?
Typically in the engagement letter (you'll have a fee plus something to the effect of "reasonable expenses to be reimbursed). Client may request a breakdown of the expenses but I've never seen this happen (in the context of a $8m transaction fee the $30k or so of deal expenses is a bit of a rounding error. And the composition of those expenses are usually 75%+ the flights and hotels from client meetings / management presentations / site visits / etc.
That said a VP or so will typically check the expenses sheet before putting the figure into the invoice to be sent to the client. It's very embarrassing if the client does ask for the breakdown and there's something obviously wrong (e.g. another team expensed to the wrong code, which isn't uncommon). And if your VP sees a bunch of dinners and cabs expensed by you on days when you blatantly weren't working on this project, then I hope your VP is a nice guy / gal.
Anyway I think this rumour (if this whole thread is not a naive troll) is bogus for exactly this reason. I suppose it's possible (I don't work at UBS and never have) that UBS have catch-all buckets for meal expenses or, UBS is limiting expensing to general company codes. But honestly this would be so hard to police.
Correct. Would venture to say in M&T 99% of meal expenses are never reimbursed by a client as its always general marketing or a deal that never closes.
But this is not the juniors fault. Its our incompetent MDs fault. Crazy policy if true.
If you’re a junior employee, joining UBS is a disaster which will set you up for failure and the poor treatment and amount of hostility from seniors towards the juniors who are executing all the work for them is unreal.
You don’t get good deal experience and reps, or a good culture or mentorship, and you don’t even get paid (the whole point) because the revenue per MD head is godawful since so many of the MDs are useless.
Everything is about cutting costs for juniors (understaffing junior teams, not promoting juniors, not paying juniors) and instead of fixing the underlying issues with the MDs, they literally want to take away your food (which was already below street) so you go hungry at night. Un fucking believable.
And, the idea that the UBS AI team or offshore team will lead to improvements/efficiencies for lower working hours is a delusional fantasy since both of them are completely useless and retarded.
Which group were you layed off from?
people who are saying "I take the trade-off if that means no late nights" are you fr??
It is obvious that it won't impact for the slightest the workload, you guys just won't be eating. From my understanding, that is an attempt to set a competitive atmosphere in the open-space as you will have to discretely steal a gum from your colleagues' desk to have something to chew on during the night
UBS analysts were getting too fat to be client facing. This is a blessing.
That is indeed another relevant read of the situation sir, yours seems at least as accurate as mine I must admit
an analyst mentioned one of the group heads likes working out and thinks too may juniors are out of shape, could be a factor
Because of their high headcount and low deal volume, they probably have one of the higher meal costs absorbed (not passed onto client), so this makes a lot of financial sense
This is pure corporate greed
Not sure how this could be true, my understanding is that meals are expensed to whichever client analysts are staying in late for - at least that’s how it goes at my shop
That expense only hits if the deal closes, which in UBS case is 1/ 500 pitches...
Incoming SA and should I be concerned? I don’t wanna starve😭
They have refrigerators, microwave ovens and a small convenience store you could buy snacks
This is typical shit posting on WSO
Horrible. Between this and my team guilt tripping me into coming into the office 5 days a week despite the official 4 day policy…UBS is no good
Many juniors leave right at 9:01 pm to get the free meal and UBER. It’s an abused system
They’ll probably announce it after interns leave and sign their offers
Any update here?
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