Why UBS Is the Worst Place to Start Your IB Career
If your goal is to build the strongest deal sheet possible, UBS is one of the last places I’d choose today.
Instead of joining a bank focused on winning mandates, you’re joining one still cleaning up the biggest banking merger in decades. While your peers at competitors are pitching, executing, and closing deals, many UBS teams have spent years navigating restructurings, layoffs, reorganizations, and integration headaches.
Junior bankers don’t develop by sitting through organizational reshuffles. They develop by working on live M&A, IPOs, and financings. Every quarter spent on internal disruption is experience you don’t get back.
The reality is simple: private equity recruiters don’t care how many integration meetings you attended. They care about the quality of your transaction experience. If another bank consistently gives its analysts more live deals, that’s where the strongest exits will come from.
UBS is still a globally respected institution for wealth management. But prestige doesn’t compensate for lost reps. Your first two years in banking are too important to spend waiting for a failing franchise to finish its perpetual rebuilding.
Thank you captain obvious!
Congrats on UBS!
Crazy how UBS use to be respected 5, 10, 15 years ago. CS acquisition was the biggest fumble of the 21st century
UBS in 2020-2021 prior to CS was not GS/JPM/MS, but it was respectable enough (albeit kinda mid)
In defence of UBS, it's not like they had a choice in acquiring Credit Suisse - government and Central Bank pressure meant they HAD to.
Old school UBS bankers always resisted the urge to merge with CS because it would be bad for UBS, even if there were synergies on paper
5 year outlook is pretty bleak, likely will look something like this:
2027 - Fire current IB leadership, Barclays group heads etc
2028 - Waffle around potential interim new leadership, rethink IB growth strategy
2029 - Get some disengaged BofA Grouphead type to lead the bank
2030 - Still staffing up and cleansing UBS of mode people, hires his old buddies from BofA
2031 - Year 1 fully staffed, but still growing
2032 - Finally Top 10-15 again in US Banking
Yeah I’ve wasted 2 years of my career and leaving post bonus. They are just so dumb in their decision making and hiring
“2032 - Finally Top 10-15 again in US Banking”
would bet a gorillion dollars this does not happen
For the prospects 5 years from now who look at this thread, what is the state of UBS banking in 2032? (Still exist, spun off, top 15, closed the bussiness)
All realistic except for your 2032 point
How is Marco still employed? Laughable. Even his own nepo hires have started quitting in the last few months
Speculating he might have some type of blackmail on Sergio or something. The only thing that makes sense
Deciding to start my career at UBS was objectively the worst decision of my life and I regret it daily
The Committee on Self-Congratulation — 2026
Oil on canvas.
Painted shortly after UBS IB leaders determined their own compensation and shortly before lackluster results were explained away.
UBS pays street bonuses and you can work relatively chill hours if you are smart. UBS is paradise if you are a checked out second year in a non M&A or M&T or FIG group. However, if you are in one of those 3 groups, you likely cannot get a good exit anyways. In terms of getting a good offer, luckily you can still get UMM/MF interviews from UBS if you are at a decent group.
This is completely false they pay way below street bonuses. Only people with exits are the ones who interview and get a spot before they even start at UBS
An1 top bucket bonus was 75k and An2 was 100k+. On-cycle this year was 6 months after the analysts started and yet people still have offers. If you are a technically competent junior, you can get an offer from UBS.
surely M&A, M&T, FIG not as bad as you guys say…
All the open job postings in those groups beg to differ
It's actually worse believe it or not
The ubs director and executive director bonuses are so below street its insane. Like several hundred k lower. And what's hard is if you are unfortunate enough to stay at UBS long enough to be an ED your options of lateraling are slim, hence you are resigned to the terrible bonuses and can't push back on abuse (and that mentality spreads down deal teams to the lower ranks).
I have heard of some absolutely insanely low ED bonuses.
So sounds like the entire bonus pool just gets taken up by MDs..
Looking back, I am so lucky to have been laid off at CS a month prior to the merger. What felt like a real kick in the dick at the time turned out to be the best thing that ever happened. Hoping the same for those in similar situations at the post merger bank.
Congrats on not experiencing post-merger UBS!
“Hi guys, my name is Victor Swezey and I'm a reporter at Bloomberg News. I cover workplace issues like layoffs, working conditions, labor unions, etc. Lately, I've been interested in UBS, so naturally I've been spending a lot of time on here. I just put out this scoop on the bank's RTO policies: "UBS Americas Brings Junior Bankers Back to Office 5 Days a Week"
I'd love to hear more about what's going at UBS, and I'm happy to talk on background/anonymously. If you want to chat, feel free to reach out at vswezey at blooomberg dot net or on Signal at victor2001.82”
-Vswezey
The biggest question isn't UBS's brand it's whether analysts are getting enough live deal reps during the integration.
Why do I see a new UBS hate post every week on this thread? Is this just one jaded ex-analyst that made 20 different WSO accounts just to post and hype himself up. It's getting tiring
Cry More Marco!
all current and former analysts are jaded / disgruntled
What other banks can we move to to get better reps? Asking as an MBA associate
Apparently WF is paradise
Preach it. UBS is the worst place in banking for any person not based in Pune. The strategy is clear. Use European and American expertise but continually pay them less and less. They tell the truth to incompetent, political hack MDs in Switzerland regarding their terrible decisions, poor pay and poor strategy. The Americans and Europeans get replaced by Indians who say 'yes' then work to offshore roles to Pune even further. As long as regulators work with banks, impose no fines, generally look the other way and keep moving oversight goalposts then UBS will continue their flim-flam risk operations. Hilarious that they can't even launch a simple checking product in US bc their systems and poor tech investments are a disaster.
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