UBS 2025 All MD Hires and Fire's
There are so many threads every time some MD leaves or joins UBS. Saw someone do this in one of the earlier threads as a comment, but thought I would repost for visibility and for ease of following. Please feel free to correct me with anything that's changed or is wrong. I don't believe many of the new hires have started yet, but the point is that they have been hired by UBS.
From their comment:
In 2025, UBS has lost: the head of LDCM, 1 MD in LevFin, 2 MD in Sponsors, 2 HC MDs (one of which was a former co-head at MS and another HC MD to MS), 1 Industrial MDs (co-head of Industrials), and at least 2 Tech MD got laid off.
UBS has hired: 2 Tech MDs from BoFA, 1 CR MD from Stifel (ex Citi and BoFA), 1 MD in Tech M&A from MS, 3 HC MDs from RBC, 1 MD in M&T, 1 MD in Tech ECM from Citi, and 1 LDCM MD from Barclays.
From that user's other comment:
1/3 HC MDs, the M&T MD, the new CR MD, and the new LDCM head were all previously at Barclays/Lehman at some point. 2/3 of the new HC hires, both the tech coverage hires, are (assume meant aren't because other sentence said are and cross-checked their LinkedIn's; none of them are ex-Barclays/Lehman) ex-Barclays/Lehman; neither is the Tech M&A guy nor the Tech ECM guy.
cooked.
Damn really just got my comment posted as a post by someone else. Didn't know there were credit thieves for WSO comments, too.
Shithead OP literally made an account just for this post
…talk about dedication to your craft
Just realized that. Not sure if the directly stating you are stealing someone else's comment is more of shit-posting or the creation of the new account is more shitposting. At that point, I got to respect their game.
On an another note, at least this is a factual statement and not just a bunch of opinions and the same cherry-picked dart regurgitated based on something that one SVP in Corp Dev said about UBS, like every other UBS post on the top of this forum.
UBS - getting dunked on, on WSO, is our craft
The number of MDs that have been on platform 3+ years (eg hired in 2022 or earlier) has got to be at record lows.
Which is to say an insanely high % of MDs are not fully ramped and or on guarantees.
Basically a recipe for a very bad year - wouldnt be surprised if the bonus pool is down 30%. Seems like anyone who can easily jump ship is jumping
I’m honestly just confused at this point. Do bankers really need three full years to show any real deal flow? I get that ramping takes time and relationships aren’t rebuilt overnight, but some of these MDs have been collecting paychecks at UBS for two years now. At some point, you'd expect something, literally anything, to break through.
UBS has hired 10+ MDs in Tech and adjacent verticals since 2023. Just based on sheer volume, it’s hard to believe every single one of them is completely useless. And yet here we are, almost nothing to show for it. The only notable tech-related M&A I can even think of is the KKR–Instructure deal, and that looked like a classic case of UBS getting M&A deals because of strong sponsor relationship's given how often UBS does LevFin deals for KKR.
That brings me to the obvious question: what’s happening inside UBS Tech right now? Is anyone working on a live deal that isn't just a LevFin product? With the number of MDs hired across Tech coverage, M&A, and ECM, you’d think something, anything, would be active by now.
(Adding this for clarity, this isn’t meant as just another dunk on UBS.) I have friends who did their analyst years in some of the “bad” UBS groups and still landed PE exits. UBS is still a better seat than the majority of IB roles out there. That said, I work in Tech banking, and I genuinely have never seen UBS lead anything outside of LevFin. They show up on as the buy-side here and there, but I’ve yet to see one of their clients win a process we ran on the sell-side. But to be fair, how bad UBS Tech is (or isn’t) doesn’t matter all that much for recruiting. As long as you’re in a coverage group, the headhunter math is still mostly bank + school + GPA.
These are likely all MDs who are specialists on working on excess Goldman, JPM and MS deals. There only shot is when all those platforms turn down deals because of overall ongoing high volume of deals. As overall M&A volume is less than 2021, there are no excess deals for UBS to work on and they starve
In cases like this you start to question whether the bonus pool could ever dry up with the combination of underperformance and guarantees
Stealing an ‘Intern in IB’s’ comments/work and reposting it as a new post just to keep milking SB’s on the UBS hate gravy train is diabolical levels of uselessness.
Now I KNOW that this has to be another new account from the ‘Senior VP in CorpDev’…this sounds exactly like what an underperforming director/ED level would do to their own juniors
I posted the comment while not even trying to dunk on UBS, also honestly not even sure if this post does dunk on UBS since the person didn't even change around anything I said to make it sound bad. The post shows a firm that is hiring a bunch of new people across Tech and HC primarily, and learning from earlier mistakes by hiring people from across the street instead of just ex-Barclays/Lehman.
Good organizations have low turnover and high employee retention.
When are the next round of layoffs? Would think they will do some soon given Q2 results
Weirdly enough, the tech team seems safer than other teams; there are 2 product MDs aligned to Tech joining soon, alongside 1 coverage MD. HC also seems safe, given they had 3 MD coverage hires very recently. The LevFin, Sponsors, and Industrial teams all seem shaky given lost MDs and the whole M&A and Sponsor combination. Would think layoffs happen right after interns leave and before the full-timers start. I would guess the groups with a bunch of first-year's starting like LevFin might be more prone to junior layoffs than groups with few analysts coming in.
Disagree. Would much rather be a first year in the top group (levfin) than one of the worst groups (tech).
That Reality of UBS thread has confirmed another UBS Tech MD departure that I didn't count. I only counted that one dude who left in less than a year to RBC. 2 MDs leaving and 2 coming in for coverage makes sense.
Heard from a friend who's still there that the head of family office coverage just left?
Heard this too, Sponsors should be another MD gone. Sponsor's is not a top group in the future at UBS very likely given MD departures + the combination. The group might be the single most unsafe group to be in. It's been bounced around twice in 2 years, going from being reporting to LevFin to independent to reporting to M&A.
Industrials Services MD just quit. A real rain maker who consistently brought in 8 figures of revenue per year.
Industrials Team is gutted of their best MDs at this point. Would consider no coverage group to be decent / good at this point.
Leveraged Finance Origination is the only productive group left in the bank. If I was a LFO MD now is the perfect time to threaten to quit to get a multi-year guarantee.
Yea. But on the bright side junior hours should improve considerably with AS gone, though job security is much lower now.
How many juniors on his team?
Tbh everyone without a guarantee’s bonus is in question
Where is AS going?
WSO isn't letting me edit for some reason, but losing a banker who's going to head a subvertical to a top BB like MS must mean he was one of the few elite rainmakers at UBS. Hasn't LevFin also lost a rainmaker and others by association from the sponsor's losses since the sponsor's team at UBS is a quasi-LevFin team?
How did they mismanage this situation that badly?
Are there any strong MDs left in GIG?
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