Best Response

I have good friends at UBS and they have worked hard, but reaped great rewards.

They have the up and coming story behind them too...Ken Moelis left DLJ grabbed some of the hitters from DLJ and other banks and turned a non-existant US Investment Banking into a top 5 franchise. It would be like a Macquarie/HSBC/RBC?RBS competing in Bulge ranks now (they are not even close)

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have a FT there, joining in july. i really really like all the people ive met there, both in all my interviews and my sell day.

very approachable, down to earth and friendly...everyone of them .

in fact, whatever little experience ive had interviewing with different firms, lehman's and UBS's cultures stood out.

as far as difficulty goes, i found it at par with the other BBs...but none of the interviewers were ever assholes to me, even when they were trying to stress me out.

it seems like UBS really wants to keep people, I saw a lot of 3rd yrs and direct promotes thereafter...they say they really want to invest in analysts and retain them, as opposed to some banks who, even at the interviews, gave out the impression that analysts were commodities to be used to two years to the max.

 

I had a pleasant experience with the whole recruitment at UBS IBD London. Firstly, UBS was the quickest to contact me (I mostly applied online) and arranged the interviews promptly.

Had two rounds - I would say mostly personality rather than competency based interviews. No juniors involved in recruitment process (met analysts only during informal dinner). Interviewers ranged from global head to third year associate.

The interview feedback was instantaneous. On Sunday (after super Saturday), one of the interviewing MD's called with an offer. Following, days I received congratulating calls from other interviewers. Finally, they arranged a personal dinner with MD and VP from the country/local team (since I don't live in the UK). Was done with the whole thing before end of October.

Can't comment on comparable work/life balance, since don't have first hand experience. However, I don't think it differs much from the other places. Irrelevant but interesting point - the word on the street is that UBS has some of the more attractive perks (friends from MS, CS told me).

BTW: today's UBS article @ Bloomberg: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aeqkZs7fGAo8&refer=…

 

Know the UBS story. Mention "momentum" in so telling said story. As always, have your own good story as to why Investment Banking. Know a good book to talk about. Know how to calculate FCF. Know why you use FCF. Know the major "above the line" parts of the I/S.

That's about all I can think of right now... good luck. Is it UBS NY?

 

Every bank poaches talent from other banks. It just seems like UBS is the older, wiser brother that gets all the girls in high school compared to CS. They're bigger in Switzerland obviously and will be much better in the US in about 5 years or so. In LA, Moellis is a bad-ass and stole people from CS and obvioulsy DLJ. In Chicago, the office just started 3 years ago with all CS people, but is already ahead of CS in terms of prestige and deal flow in industrials. In NYC, they're stride for stride with CS. I guess it's part of life.

 

I think the firm is hugely on the rise and Ken Moelis has managed to develop some high quality Managing Directors (Jeff Raich, Mahmoodzadegan etc) in addition to those poached from MS etc like Jeff Sine.

I'd still say it's not quite established yet and very lean. On the rise with great people, but still a ways to go to reach the top echelon.

 

>Goldman Beware: UBS, via China, May Be New Stock King (Update2) >2007-01-22 04:43 (New York) > > > (Adds UBS's domestic license in the 16th paragraph.) > >By Cathy Chan > Jan. 22 (Bloomberg) -- If anyone overtakes Goldman Sachs >Group Inc., the worldwide leader in selling stock, it probably >will be UBS AG. > UBS, Europe's biggest bank, last year arranged more equity >sales than Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc. for the first time, >according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Zurich-based >company now trails only Goldman after tripling its share of the >market since 2000 by targeting issuers in China. > You would have thought it would be a U.S. bank that's &gt;nipping at Goldman's heels,'' said Alison Sinclair, a fund &gt;manager at Glasgow-based Resolution Plc, which manages about $70 &gt;billion and holds UBS shares.UBS is a stealth player.'' > UBS handled more equity deals in 2006 than any investment >bank has in at least seven years. It arranged 247 share sales >that raised $50.2 billion, compared with Goldman's 183 for $59.3 >billion, Bloomberg data show. To oust New York-based Goldman, >the Swiss bank needs to maintain its lead in Asia, where >companies are tapping the equity market at the fastest pace >anywhere. > Being strong in Asia Pacific is becoming ever more &gt;critical to investment banks and their standing globally,'' Huw &gt;Jenkins, chief executive officer of UBS's investment bank, said &gt;in an interview. &gt; Asia now accounts for more than a third of global equity &gt;offerings, up from 20 percent five years ago. Chinese companies &gt;will sell as much as $55 billion of stock in 2007, up from last &gt;year's $50 billion, Jing Ulrich, JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co.'s Hong &gt;Kong-based chairman of China equities, said in an interview. &gt; &gt; President Roosevelt &gt; &gt; Rob Rankin, 43, has led UBS's efforts in China for the past &gt;three years after the bank assigned him to kick-start a business &gt;that was generating less than $100 million of annual revenue. &gt;Rankin, a 16-year UBS veteran who formerly ran the Asia-Pacific &gt;telecommunications, media and technology group, pledged to more &gt;than double investment-banking revenue. &gt; He began a campaign to boost bankers' morale, sending the &gt;team copies of a 1910 speech by former U.S. President Theodore &gt;Roosevelt that extolled the virtues of those people who dare to &gt;take risks. His team gathered at Bangkok's Banyan Tree hotel in &gt;January 2004 after UBS was hired to arrange the Singapore-based &gt;luxury hotel chain's S$232 million ($150 million) initial public &gt;offering. &gt; Rankin made it clear that China would be pivotal to winning &gt;Asia, handing UBS bankers copies of two books: James McGregor's &gt;One Billion Customers,'' and a lesser-known work by Carl Crow >from 1937: 400 Million Customers.'' While the opportunities &gt;had grown, he told them, the challenges remained the same. &gt; &gt; Bank of China &gt; &gt; UBS began to cultivate relationships with clients including &gt;Bank of China Ltd., the nation's second-biggest bank, China &gt;Communications Construction Co., the country's largest port &gt;builder, and China Merchants Bank Co. UBS helped the three &gt;companies sell first-time shares in 2006, earning about $160 &gt;million in fees. UBS also is sitting on a paper profit of $1.27 &gt;billion from the Bank of China stake it bought last year before &gt;the Beijing-based company's <abbr title="initial public offering&#10;"><abbr title="initial public offering">IPO</abbr></abbr>. &gt; In all, UBS arranged $19.4 billion of Chinese share sales &gt;last year, compared with Goldman's $15.7 billion, Bloomberg data &gt;show. UBS was hired to help manage planned offerings for China &gt;Railway Engineering Group Co. and Wuyi International &gt;Pharmaceutical Co. It worked with Goldman on last year's $11.2 &gt;billion initial share sale by Bank of China. &gt; Goldman has beat UBS to the sale of yuan-denominated shares &gt;for Bank of Communications Ltd. and Ping An Insurance (Group), &gt;which may raise about $10 billion. Goldman also won a role to &gt;arrange an offering in Shanghai for Ningbo Commercial Bank later &gt;this year. Goldman spokesman Peter Rose declined to comment. &gt; &gt; Most Important &gt; &gt;China's domestic market will be the most important in >Asia and the fastest-growing piece of business globally, so >being early there is essential,'' said Tian Qing, a Beijing- >based fund manager at CCB Principal Asset Management Co. >Goldman's brand and business will definitely get a boost from &gt;these big China deals, so it'll be hard for UBS to compete in &gt;the short term.'' &gt; Investment-banking fees from China more than doubled in &gt;2006 to $200 million, Rankin said. &gt;As soon as we got China right, we got the whole of Asia >right,'' said Rankin, who's based in Hong Kong. This is the &gt;real growth battleground for the securities firms globally.'' &gt; The UBS Asia investment-banking team has doubled since 2003 &gt;to about 180. The Zurich bank is likely to win the remaining &gt;licenses required to do domestic sales in China in the first &gt;half of this year. &gt; &gt; Stronger Team &gt; &gt; David Li, 45, joined from state-owned China Merchant &gt;Holdings International Co. in June 2005 to set up a Chinese &gt;brokerage. Last year, UBS also hired seven bankers from BNP &gt;Paribas Peregrine to win new business from private companies in &gt;China. The BNP team, led by Henry Cai, 52, has already won four &gt;Chinese underwriting assignments, including Dalian Port (PDA) Co. &gt;and Shanghai Jin Jiang International Hotels (Group) Co. &gt; The UBS team has also been stable. Steven Sun and David &gt;Chin, co-heads of the bank's financial institutions group in &gt;Asia, have been with the firm for seven and 12 years. He De, &gt;vice chairman of investment banking, joined in 1997. The team &gt;worked on UBS's first China deal: the $2.6 billion share sale by &gt;BOC Hong Kong Ltd. in 2002. The same team helped BOC's parent, &gt;Bank of China, on its <abbr title="initial public offering&#10;"><abbr title="initial public offering">IPO</abbr></abbr>. &gt; &gt; <abbr title="mergers and acquisitions&#10;">M&amp;A</abbr> Too &gt; &gt; UBS also had its best showing in mergers and acquisitions &gt;in Asia excluding Japan, where it overhauled Goldman to take the &gt;top spot, according to Bloomberg data. Citigroup Inc. pushed &gt;Goldman into third place. &gt; In the last quarter, the Zurich bank advised on $12.8 &gt;billion mergers and acquisitions including Bank of China's &gt;purchase of Singapore Aircraft Leasing Enterprise and Standard &gt;Chartered Plc's acquisition of Hsinchu International Bank. It &gt;also helped Orient Overseas (International) Ltd. sell $2.35 &gt;billion of North American ports to Ontario Teachers' Pension &gt;Plan, Canada's third-biggest retirement-fund manager. &gt; UBS still has a long way to go to catch Goldman on the fees &gt;it gets from arranging share offerings. Goldman, the world's &gt;biggest securities firm by market value, earned about $2 billion &gt;from selling stock last year, compared with $1.5 billion for UBS, &gt;Bloomberg data show. &gt; In the U.S., where fees for selling stock are about twice &gt;what they are in Europe and Asia, UBS remains an also-ran. It &gt;ranked seventh in 2006 with a market share of 6.1 percent, &gt;according to Bloomberg data. Goldman was first with a 15.1 &gt;percent share. UBS was third in Europe after New York-based &gt;Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co. &gt; &gt; `Global Success' &gt; &gt;Global success will become ever more dependent on >implementing the kind of approach that is now bearing fruit for >UBS in Asia Pacific,'' said Jenkins, 48, who spent his career >running equities departments in Asia and the U.S. for UBS before >becoming the investment bank's CEO in 2005. > In Asia excluding Japan, where UBS ranked first last year >with 11.6 percent of the market, the Swiss bank earned average >fees of 2.7 percent, according to Bloomberg data. Goldman's fees >were lower at 2.5 percent, the data show. The last time UBS >earned higher fees than its New York rival was in 2002, when >Goldman had 23 percent of the market and UBS trailed in fifth >place with 5.7 percent. > UBS missed China's first two stock booms, in 1997 and 2000, >when companies rushed to sell shares as stocks soared. In 2000, >mainland companies raised $13 billion through IPOs, including a >$5.6 billion sale by China Unicom Ltd., the nation's second- >biggest mobile-phone company. > During the late 1990s, UBS was too distracted by its own >mergers to focus on Asia, Rankin said. Swiss Bank Corp. bought >London-based S.G. Warburg Plc in 1995 to create SBC Warburg. >Three years later, it merged with Union Bank of Switzerland to >form UBS. > > `Internally Focused' > > The group was probably more internally focused than it &gt;should have been,'' Rankin said.The merger was a big >distraction in some markets, particularly in Asia.'' > By 2000, UBS trailed Morgan Stanley and Goldman in Asia >outside Japan. It had a 1 percent share of the market for stock >sales, compared with more than 14 percent each for those two >rivals. Now, UBS is well-positioned to take advantage of >investment-banking revenue that's increasing by 20 percent to 25 >percent a year in Asia, Rankin said. > The growing risk that China's stock rally will falter may >stymie UBS's global ambitions. The Shanghai Composite Index has >more than doubled since reaching an eight-year low in July 1995. >The nation's stocks are valued at 31.6 times forecast profits, >double the average for developing markets. > UBS itself said in a Jan. 15 report that the Shanghai index, >which tracks the bigger of China's two stock exchanges, may fall >more than 20 percent this year. > > China Pipeline > > It's really hard to say if the market can generate a &gt;similarly strong business pipeline for investment banks in the &gt;next two years,'' said Wu Yanran, an analyst at Beijing-based &gt;New Century Fund Management Co. who tracks China's financial- &gt;services industry. &gt; Rankin said he can't afford to be complacent after UBS &gt;lined up about 20 initial public offerings for China this year. &gt;On a cold Hong Kong day just before Christmas, he and members of &gt;the China team huddled on the corporate boat, Swissy II, and &gt;discussed how to avoid being overwhelmed by their success. &gt;Some banks declare victory too early,'' Rankin said. >``The battle has only just begun.''

 

UBS, imo is the best place to start as a first year analyst. While GS and MS are undoubtedly the strongest powerhouse banks, if you start at UBS not only will you work, in general, will smaller deal teams, but you will be valued more highly as an analyst. Hence, the high retention ratio for third year analyst or associate positions. The pay, depending on the group, is one of the best amongst the BBs (GS paying the least). UBS also has one of, if not, the best analyst training programs out there.

Cons: While health care at UBS is a monster, i hear its a sweatshop. But then again, if we are ever ganna be pulling crazy hours, it might as well be when we're young and can actually handle it. Another con would be the frustration you might feel when you explain to your arts and science friends that you'll be working for UBS and they say, "UPS?! Oh hey! That's great!"

 
tubs:
Another con would be the frustration you might feel when you explain to your arts and science friends that you'll be working for UBS and they say, "UPS?! Oh hey! That's great!"

I have an internship with UBS this summer and I've heard that from so many people. I asked my girlfriend if I had some kind of speech impediment that I didn't know about. Glad to hear its not just me!

 

While I agree with tubs on some of pros (small deal teams, pay, training), why are the analysts staying for a 3rd year? Is it b/c they're not getting the same exit opps. (pe/hf) as people from other BB. I know plenty of analysts that have been asked to stay on for 3rd year at other BBs, but have declined b/c they had PE offers with higher pay and much, much better hours. IMHO, UBS does care for its employees and I like most of people I've interacted with. Stay away from HC. It sucks. My best friend works there and she can't stand it. She's miserable and looks like she's aged 5 years in 6 months. If you're in NY, try getting into M&A or Sponsors.

 
<span class=keyword_link><a href=/finance-dictionary/what-is-the-bulge-bracket-BB><abbr title=bulge bracket&#10;>BB</abbr></a></span>.MandA.3rdyear:
well must be some uneducated fools you run with, because no one at Wharton would think someone said UPS.

I wouldn't call people at Georgia Tech uneducated fools, just not familiar with financial firms.

 

to reply to your comment about how "no one at Wharton would think someone said UPS"... at our school of management everyone knows what UBS is. I was referring to some of the kids in the arts and sciences. The only real reference that most of them make is... "yeah... You and Us! I know it!" I give them credit for at least knowing that much. all the "fools that i run with" aren't in business schools. i think it would be sad if all of them were.

 

Is UBS generally seen as a lower tier compared to the American BB firms? I know they are building momentum at the moment, but does anyone believ that they will reach the same deal/prestige level as GS, MS, LH and the like? (referring in particular to IBD). Sometimes I wonder whether I have made the right choice by signing their exploding offer that quickly and not applying for other banks for a FT position.

 

UBS is equivalent to Lehman in terms of deal/prestige. Sure Lehman has made great strides lately, but both banks are really, really close. Lehman is stronger in some groups while UBS is stronger in others. Regionally, I'd say UBS is much, much stornger than Lehman, which is greatly boosted by the LA Office.

Lehman is clearly ahead in Fixed Income. In equities, I'd give UBS a slight edge. The swiss banks are known for being bit more conservative, but so is Lehman.

 

What's the pay like for a first year analyst. I live in Scottsdale, AZ and am considering applying at UBS. I'm still not sure what position though. I owned a small business for 2 years, then was a fixed income trader for 3 years, and now I'm in sales. Any suggestions?

 

Same as any other big bank.

First year analysts (in corporate finance) made: 10k sign-on 60k salary 70-90k bonus

Granted, last year was a record year for bonuses. Who knows what bonuses will look like next July.

Also expect: $25 dinner allowance weeknights/ $40 on weekends Cabs and black cars home paid for Health insurance The usual benefits

I know this isn't really my place to say... but you are probably too old for anyone to consider you as a candidate for a first year analyst job.

 

How about CS vs Lehman IBD in London? Which bank is generally more respected over there?

I think I want to go with Leh because I like the firm a lot and I know quite a lot of people there.Nevertheless, I am currently in a position where I might have to accept CS offer since Leh is refusing to give me a US specific offer due to the H1B visa situation in the US (I'm an international student). CS is willing to take the risk and hold a spot in the US for me. The possibility that I might end up in London is extremely high though, hence my question.

 

I understand that but at least, CS is still giving me a shot to stay in the US. And if that doesnt work out, I'll be placed in London as well. Plus I would think CS, being a European bank, will be more reputable than Lehman in London. No?

 

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