UBS Appears to be Exploring Sale
Reuters says at least eight banks signalled interest, without naming them. Blick and Semafor mention Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered as possible combinations, rather than confirming they are three of those eight.
The UBS merger speculation matters if you’re considering joining its investment bank. No deal is confirmed, but a potential buyer’s rationale should matter to your career decision.
For juniors, the risk extends beyond layoffs. You could join a team whose senior bankers leave, whose mandates move elsewhere, or whose hiring and promotions stall during integration. That affects your deal experience, references and exit opportunities during the exact years you’re trying to build them. Being relatively inexpensive doesn’t protect you if your entire team gets consolidated.
For seniors, the question is sharper: what would a buyer actually need you for? Distinct client relationships and consistent revenue give you a stronger position. An expensive title covering clients the buyer already serves creates a much harder retention case. Duplicate sector heads and management layers would be obvious places to look for savings.
In a Morgan Stanley-type combination, UBS’s international wealth franchise could be a major attraction while overlapping investment-banking teams face consolidation. A transaction that benefits shareholders could still be disruptive for employees.
Synergies are easy to underwrite, just fire all MDs (who don't bring deals anyway)
So about 90% of UBS MDs
The only value in UBS is the wealth management franchise, it's effectively a WM with an IB bolted on to it that was initially supposedly serve it's HNWI clients, which sounded like a good idea for about 5 minutes. More likely they won't be sold and they can't re-domicile easily to the US to take advantage of looser capital requirements. Looks like that will be a multi-year judicial battle, that I don't think UBS has the stomach for. The realistic and sensible solution is to accept defeat in the US and retreat, most European banks bar Barclays (they also got lucky with absorbing some of the Lehman scraps but avoided scandals) failed to crack the US long term and have since re-calibrated their approach into core, home regions (see Deutsche). UBS gets memed a lot but I do have some sympathy in that their government has effectively forced them to buy CS when they didn't want to (also had no choice) and forced stringent capital requirements at a time where the US and the UK are reducing them. WSO being US-centric equates UBS as being mid across the board, whereas even in spite of all the valid criticism, they still have some decent teams in Europe like FIG, ECM, Industrials, LevFin, even if they haven't been performing to legacy brand standards.
There is more to IB than just US and banking... UBS is strong in Asia. They are also strong in equities.
Yeah.. their Equities S&T business is very strong even in US, and it's actually one of the top players in Asia, including IB. I guess it's all about US IBD that UBS gets all jokes about
Ditto
Rumor on the street is MV is negotiating an America's IB carveout sale to barclays as part of a broader UBS sale.
Does Barclays want him back tho
lmao
Congrats on UBS! (to whoever buys them)
Article link?
Can we stop having so many UBS posts? Look I h8 them too but this is excsssive
What do you think about the job prospect of an incoming 27 FT in a non-US office?
It’s all bluff to put pressure on the Swiss politicians. Note that the higher capital requirements still needs to pass the national council before being implemented.
There is no way the Swiss would let their national bank, and a major lever of policy be acquired like that
Ok but like are we going to lose the daily UBS update if they get taken out?
Industry is consolidating because of AI. I would consider applying to Rogo AlphaSense or FactSet honestly if I was a junior banker
Nice try sneaking in Rogo! Dogshit product
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