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)
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)
Deciding to start my career at UBS was objectively the worst decision of my life and I regret it daily
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