Why I'd never work at UBS IB
UBS IB is the poster child for incompetence wrapped in corporate arrogance. Here why:
-The CS acquisition was a desperate gamble that’s turned into a nightmare.
-The compensation is laughably mediocre, especially given the brutal hours.
-The culture is a mess of bureaucratic indecision, with a revolving door of talent fleeing for better opportunities.
-This firm that prefers endless restructuring and gimmicks instead of real strategy
If you like watching a mediocre firm self-destruct in real time, then sure, UBS is the place for you. Otherwise, have some self-respect and aim higher.
Get a hobby, man. This is just sad.
Strongly believing it's some same guy circle jerking his hate boner
Says the AH ranked person who has spent 1000 hours+ on WSO
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The CS deal was a home run. Ubs got like CHF3bn in free money and now owns the Swiss banking, WM, and AM markets
No idea what you mean when you say it was a desperation move for ubs. It was a desperation move for cs, which was about to go under
IB is a pimple on the ass of UBS and absolutely does not matter for its overall results
Exactly. I worked in FIG at the time of the transaction, and heard from the UBS deal team themselves. The transaction was not just about IB, it was the wealth management and asset management. Asset management is one of UBS's strengths, and the acquisition increased its AUM. Also come on, we are supposed to all understand M&A... Growth from an acquisition is not expected in the first year?
Spot on. UBS America's a declining franchise in many respects. It will never be a "top-6" franchise in the US or "the strongest non-American bank" and overtake Barclays.
Too many useless MDs, groups, bureaucracy, and leadership (MV just keeps hiring his Barclays friends who have bought in no flow). It's not a surprise that the only competitive groups in the entire bank are those that do not have Barclays' leadership and are legacy UBS/CS. A lot of the old CS rainmakers are on fat guarantee bonuses, which is fine because they are at least bringing in work. the Barclays people are also on fat guartneed bonuses with literally no reward; just absolute incompetence all around on the MD hiring. The bank is also absurdly conservative with lending and refuses to be actually aggressive in deal terms or in processes, which makes the whole idea of aggressive growth even funnier.
In short, UBS is a fake full-service bank; it really only has a few coverage areas and groups that are competitive and do much, with the rest being value-negative cost structures. This, however, will never be fixed b/c IBD leadership is maybe the worst at brining in senior talent of any bank; it's impressive how bad the hiring has been. how do you go 0/10+ MD's in hiring?
You go 0/10+ in MD hiring, by just hiring your friends or people you know. By hiring those that relied on their banks brands or other MDs to have deals
Was a rhetorical question, Barclays nepo is at the heart of the failures of UBS to truly take advantage of the CS merger in the IB business in the America's.
Might I ask if you've ever received an offer there?
>The CS acquisition was a desperate gamble that’s turned into a nightmare.
They were forced into it by the Swiss government using more or less a wartime emergency law
lol exactly. "desperate gamble" like it wasn't mandated by their HQ government
Was the acquisition a gamble? I thought the Swiss government essentially told ubs to buy them and helped them do so?
Can confirm the sale was forced, though obviously at a pretty cheap acquisition price and with various protections from the Swiss government. It was great deal, especially when considering the huge growth in AUM for the WM franchise (the acquisition made it the largest WM player in the world). The deal was initially just to not collapse the broader banking industry in Switzerland.
I really don't think the very few CS MDs they bought are the problems anyways; the top dealmakers at UBS currently and the only reason they are doing reasonably well in Q1 2025 are ex-CS guys who stayed on , albeit with huge bonuses and semi-long-term contracts.
The problem with the franchise has largely been the Barclays senior hires. There's a 1:1 correlation between how bad a group has performed and how many Barclays seniors it has. The worst part is that these Barclays seniors abuse the juniors, forcing them to work on continuous small pitches in the hope of winning a single deal, which has yet to manifest after a whole year. These seniors have yet to bring in any fees and yet are on huge bonuses and somehow have won all the political battles (see FIG where insurance rainmaker from CS that bought in the sole advisor credit for the Aon - NFP deal has left). The leadership seems blind to the fact that the Barclays people are the problem, which is untenable in the longer term since, again, they simply do not bring in revenue.
The only positive thing that UBS senior leadership has done is to allowed people to leave, garden leave is nice.
The takeover was not some sort of hail mary desperate manover. - UBS leadership simulated a takeover of CS on a yearly basis.
Yeah like an analyst does profit a balance sheet. Nice!
Idk if cs has worked out as expected
It hasn’t worked at all. Compare it to expectations when they first merged to make this banking behemoth. Expectations getting lower and lower each month
cant go a week without seeing UBS getting shit on
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