UBS GB Americas: Falls to 17th YTD (Q3-25), behind Scotiabank, BMO, Mizhuno
Two years after the CS acquisition UBS continues to fall in the Americas even after a massive investment in bringing in scores of new MDs.
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I’m sure the 2003 UBS-CS merger models had a 40% decline in market share after just 2 years
Please find excuses below:
Bonuses will suck, more people will leave, and the slide will continue
UBS - Shitting the bed is our craft
Legitimately much closer to 26th than 6th.
Would have to 3x bussiness to get to 6th
Another 20% decline will likely put them at 26th
All the recent departures could put them close to a 20% decline
6th place was always a pipe dream. Almost gauranteed with recent departures we’ll be outside the Top 20 the next couple quarters unless we get lucky with a massive fee somewhere.
Shit at this point Truist will just acquire them
If they merged with Truist they’d still be worse than RBC in the Americas
They aren’t a smaller bank now they are just more capital efficient is the lie they will want you to believe
If Marco isnt gone in the next 6 months, by the end of Q1 2026 post bonuses, my faith in firm wide leadership will be fully gone. Have heard multiple seniors say the same.
Marco unilaterally owns this mess. He hand picked all the MD hires and they have almost all failed to meet expectations, all the while killing the bonus pool, causing very elevated attrition amongst the actually productive UBS and CS legacy bankers, mostly in GIG, FIG, and LevFin / Sponsors.
The brain drain, horrible upcoming bonuses, and next round of brain drain as a result cannot be reversed until Marco and his select Lehman bros are gone.
My take as well. Theres a reason Barclays didnt make him head of banking, and that his allies lost the political battles at Barclays. They arent good bankers.
Would estimate the bankers hired are 3rd quartile on average. Not the absolute worst (in some of the weak groups they were actually upgrades), but at least half of bankers on the street are better, certainly most / all bankers at other BBs and EBs.
The only productive and/or profit-generating group this year has been LevFin. Sponsors don't generate flow and are largely dependent on their coverage banker relationships and UBS LevFin capabilities. Industrials went from a massive 2024 to zero M&A deals. HC only closes sub-500mm deals, and even at that, not that many. Most other groups only do financings, and some don't even do that. M&A does nothing except internal work and pitches. ECM is the only product where UBS fees have gone up, and that's all because of the tech ECM finally opening up/market conditions.
Saying GIG and Sponsors don't bring in deals proves you have no idea what you are talking about. GIG has been slower, but thats because (if you have paid any attention whatsoever this year) its been a sector-wide issue for the most part. Couple that with some big name departures and there is your answer. Saying that Levfin drives Sponsor dealflow is also braindead - how do you think sponsors (as the buyers of companies) determine who should lead their LBOs? I can promise you it isn't because of "differentiated execution capabilities" or because UBS levfin offers better terms (every single BB will ultimately end up at same terms)...especially considering the mass-exodus from LCM (who are the ones that actually sell the deals to the market). No mention of FIG either...which did the AON Wealthspire deal and has been cooking all year with multiple sell-sides. Braindead comment and inaccurate, representative of someone who either doesn't understand how banking works or is too early in their career to know.
In my experience senior bankers are usually given 3 years to demonstrate success on a new platform. Believe he was hired in like June 2023, so agree his time is almost up.
The only strong group at UBS is LevFin, where they are still good in large part because of a lot of lead-lefts that are CS incumbencies. The bank keeps hiring bankers, though, and some not even from Barclays; the hit rate is just too low.
The irony is that the only strong group is the one that gives away more money than receives
LevFin revenues are still down from the previous year. The only thing up is ECM, which again, as mentioned, is only because of Tech ECM activity being up and UBS being active bookrunner on a few IPO's; even in ECM, it's just all one sector and even in that sector UBS is on the low-end of top 10 for fees in ECM for the year showing it's mostly market conditions rather them being elite. The bank is just not doing well overall.
Levfin, sponsors, FIG would all like to have a word
There's no reasonable way you are saying FIG is a strong group at UBS in the year 2025 surely right? Look at headcount in FIG relative to deal flow, it's an absolute joke of a group right in the very bottom with M&T and RELL
Tech gets (rightfully) shit on in this forum, yet they’ve still managed to close bigger deals than FIG. The $4.4Bn Veeco–Axcelis deal, where they were the exclusive financial advisor, is from my perspective as someone in neither group, more impressive than being the second advisor on a ~$2Bn deal that you cited above. So the FIG claims just do not make any sense outside of you just being a senior there and hyping up your own group.
Industrials have struggled sectorally, but there are still deals being done by other banks, just not at UBS. LevFin is clearly the strongest group right now since most of the key relationships sit with Sponsors/LevFin, and Sponsors itself is really just a relationship shop. It’s not exactly a great analyst experience, which is why LevFin ends up being the only seat that’s actually solid for us juniors.
Meanwhile, some of us in other groups are out here grinding until 2–3 AM on $200–300mm buysides that don’t even make it to a deal announcement in the 5–10% chance they close, so forgive the skepticism.
So dead
In my group some of the MDs are so bad that I legitimately think some of VPs have better commercial skills and networks.
Morale keeps getting worse and worse, which is incredible because it was already so low to begin with. Every quarter here gets more and more miserable. I hate it here so much.
Is is true UBS is no longer sponsoring candidates (UG or MBA)? Heard from my school last week about this but didnt know if it was true.
If so, congrats MAGAs - UBS junior talent will be even worse than it was before
Its true - AMERICANS first. And only.
The internationals at UBS aren’t actually better than Americans. They are generally less efficient and more incompetent, and UBS has unfairly favored them as they don’t push back and can’t leave easily.
Agree, most are very shy and often get ran over
UBS is no longer sponsoring visas. No more internationals in the recruiting pipeline and as current employees on h1-b try to renew they will be pushed out
Thank God, we should give American jobs to Americans
I don’t think they are really up and coming
Interesting — it’s surprising to see UBS still slipping despite all the senior hires post-CS deal. It really shows how tough it is to integrate teams and maintain client momentum. Curious to see if 2026 brings any rebound or if this trend continues.
I thought the bank did okay in Q3? Everyone knows 1H was an abject failure but are things not turning around?
Wonder what the % of analsyts in each coverage group at UBS close anything across their first-year. There are second-years at UBS currently who have closed nothing. Granted there are second-years who have closed 3-5+ deals as well; but just seems like a wide discrepenacy in UBS analyst deal experiences.
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