UBS Loses 3 Co-head in Short Succession
UBS has lost its Co-head of Industrials, former co-head of HC and head of levfin. These sudden departures sent shockwaves around the bank as insiders begin to question the stability of the investment bank and long term outlook. The departures from what insiders describe as the banks stronger groups of Lev Fin and Industrials, make the departures that much more impactful.
Sources:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-15/wells-fargo-taps-ubs-dealmaker-moskal-as-industrials-chair
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-17/morgan-stanley-hires-senior-health-care-banker-david-kostel
Its almost like the bank’s strategy has clearly failed and key personnel who have demonstrated success are jumping ship. If more GIG and LF MDs get poached its legit over.
Not to worry though, we can replace each with toxic Barclays hires who wont produce for 2-3 years since they’ll be on gaurantees anyway. RIP bonus pool
levfin guy was a cap markets guy not origination
Untrue, he was an origination guy, former Credit Suisse LFO
“he was Global Head of Leveraged and Debt Capital Markets.” Per the article you shared.
Regardlessly, a good LFO / sponsors team cannot exist without a good cap markets desk
what is going on??
This is a Barc fraternity. Good UBS and CS people will eventually leave.
There are no good CS people left at UBS, because the good ones have long been gone prior to the merger.
Facts
Real estate head also left recently
Other heads are in process of leaving(I have on good authority)
Nobody cares about the RELL head... RELL hasn't had deal flow in years. It's a fake group that only exists to fulfill the appearance of being a full-service bank. I am pretty sure RELL hasn't meaningfully contributed revenue in a while, has always been a bottom-tier group in legacy UBS too.
This group is so bizarre. We reached out to them while shopping around for some financing vehicles, and they just went dead silent on us. You would think they would be more inclined to do business after saying yes, but not a single response from anyone over there.
He was a cap markets guy, not originations. However, the structural crux of the problem remains. UBS as a firm is basically dependent on maybe like 15 actually good MDs in America, the vast majority of whom are in one of GIG/FSG/LF (would actually say FSG has the highest ratio of revenue-producing MDs as there is a decent bit of bloat in GIG/LF). If any of those guys leave , it's actually over. None have left yet (HC dude got demoted previously, and the GIG guy was a solid MD but not elite, this guy is cap markets and not really an origination guy).
Pretty funny to act like Warm and Kostel were not huge losses for UBS. Warm is now the Global Co-head of Cap Markets at barcap, Kostel is a Vice Chair at MS. They are both in massively better seats at much stronger firms. These were big losses, don’t kid yourself.
Kostel was not a huge loss, he was demoted as co-head months earlier. The expectation was for him to leave, don't think there is that much history of a Global Co-Head getting demoted all the way and sticking. He simply lost a political battle to the co-head of CR (who is also an actual rainmaker), who replaced him as co-head of HC. Interesting that both were ex-CS, but regardless, that was political. As for Warm, he is a cap markets dude, not an orginiations dude. The way LF works, the only people that can really be rainmakers are the originations guys. Warm is a solid dude and very sharp on the cap markets side, though, but not really a rainmaker given his role.
Got to love Marco dunking on his former guys
Agree with the above poster. Clearly a major loss. All three of these MDs are well within the top 10% of UBS MDs
Their loss will result is lower revenues in 2025-2026, that in all likelihood will be impossible to offset until / if new hires ramp.
UBS GB is poised to have a very bad year, especially relative to the current cost base…potentially worse than any year in recent memory.
Simply have an incredibly high % of deadweight MDs. Probably 2/3s of MDs in GB are negative NPV
The entire UBS IBD business is structurally unsound, the entire thing depends on LF and Sponsors' activity. When LF markets die, the business dies. The business actually hasn't done anything in the past few months because of this. Expect massive restructuring for every group except the top 2 or maybe 3.. 2/3rd is probably correct in terms of negative NPV, but more importantly, a majority of groups are negative NPV for the franchise.
What are the top 2/ or maybe 3 group?
Marc Warm is a huge loss.
He is super sharp. Huge loss!!!
Should juniors hop ship?
If you could lateral you should lateral
This is a sinking ship. Run if you have the opportunity
So what happens when the music stop? It’s not like they re going to close the division no? I mean.. agree that the ship is sinking (had them on a mandate) but.. is there a bottom? UBS will continue to operate even tho reputation is deteriorated, and so on and so forth right?
If these MDs bring any additional competent MDs in LF/FSG/GIG over the franchise is fully cooked. Probably already is
All the other groups barely matter as they generate revenue that rounds down to 0 at worst and maybe cover their costs at best
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