, is a financial services company, headquartered in
Basel and
Zürich ,
Switzerland . It also has a major presence in the New York metropolitan area with a large volume of offices located in
Manhattan ,
Jersey City, New Jersey ,
Weehawken, NJ , and
Stamford, CT .
It is a
Private Bank ing,
Investment Banking and
Securities firm. It is also a global
Asset Manager and does
Retail and
Commercial Bank ing in
Switzerland . UBS has invested assets of 2.231 trillion
Swiss Franc s, shareholders' equity of 35.310 billion Swiss francs and market capitalization of 95.401 billion Swiss francs.
UBS was formed through a merger of the
Union Bank Of Switzerland and the
Swiss Bank Corporation in 1998, following the
Long-Term Capital Management crisis, which affected the
Union Bank Of Switzerland . UBS is no longer an acronym but the company's brand, like
3M or
BP . In 2000 it merged with
PaineWebber Group Inc. to become the world's largest wealth management firm for private clients. Invested assets in all wealth management businesses, including the U.S., total CHF 2.1 trillion.
The , with 9,906 elsewhere.
The trading floor in Stamford, Connecticut holds the Guinness World Record as the largest securities trading floor in the world. The 103,000 square-foot operation is the size of two football fields and can accommodate 1,400 traders and staff.
Marcel Ospel is the Chairman of the Board of Directors.
The Group Executive Board is the executive body of the company. (
{Link without Title} ) Its members are:
UBS is organized in four business groups:
Global Wealth Management &
Business Banking ,
Investment Bank , Global Asset Management, Dillon Read Capital Management and Corporate Center.
Main competitors are
Citigroup ,
Credit Suisse ,
Deutsche Bank ,
Goldman Sachs ,
HSBC Private Bank ,
JP Morgan ,
Morgan Stanley and
Merrill Lynch , among others.
UBS was named one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers living in the US in 2004 by US based ''Working Mothers'' magazine. It is a member of the Stonewall Diversity Champions scheme and has active Gay and Lesbian, ethnic minority, and women's networking groups.
In full-year 2005, UBS reported net profit attributable to UBS shareholders (“attributable profit”) of CHF 14,029 million, with CHF 9,844 million from continuing operations and CHF 4,185 million from discontinued operations.
For the year ended
December 31 ,
2004
- Net profit CHF 8,089 million (8.089 billion swiss francs).
- Moody's long-term credit rating: Aa2
- Employees: 65,929
- In January 1997, Christoph Meili , a night watchman at the Union Bank of Switzerland (as UBS was then known), found the bank historian destroying archives compiled by a subsidiary that had extensive dealings with Nazi Germany , in direct violation of a recent Swiss law (adopted on December 13 , 1996 ) protecting such material. UBS acknowledged that it had "made a deplorable mistake", but maintained that the destroyed archives were unrelated to the Holocaust . Meili was suspended from his job at the security company that served UBS, following a criminal investigation into whether his Whistleblowing had violated bank secrecy laws. {Link without Title}
- In 2001, UBS was blamed for refusing to extend Swissair 's line of credit, forcing a grounding of Swissair's planes on October 2 , 2001 . UBS Chairman Marcel Ospel was blamed by many for ostensibly evading the request for an extension of Swissair's line of credit, and the day after the grounding, thousands of demonstrators marching in front of the Swissair headquarters carried a banner reading "Bin Ospel".
- In April 2005, UBS lost the high profile case ''Zubulake v. UBS Warburg'', a Discrimination and Sexual Harassment suit. The plaintiff convinced the jury that her boss had denied her important accounts and mocked her appearance to co-workers. Also, she claimed that there were several sexist policies in place, such as entertaining clients at Strip Clubs that made it difficult for women to socialize and foster business contacts with clients. An important event in the case was the inability of Warburg to produce several incriminating E-mail s of which Zubulake could provide records for. The plaintiff was able to prove that UBS had destroyed relevant e-mails after the Litigation Hold had been in place. Because of this, Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin gave the Jury an " Adverse Inference " instruction, essentially stating that the jury had to assume that the missing e-mails provided damning evidence against the defendant. UBS was ordered to pay the defendant $9.1 million in compensatory damages (including back pay and professional damage), and $20.2 million in punitive damages. The case was seen as a landmark in the realms of E-discovery , Document Retention , Computer Forensics , and Human Resources , particularly because the defendant's inability to produce electronic documents shifted the Burden Of Proof to the defendant.
- The Securities and Exchange Board of India ( SEBI ) alleged that UBS had played a role in the 2004 Black Monday stock market crash which followed the National Democratic Alliance government’s defeat in the general elections. SEBI's ruling of May 17 , 2005 barred UBS from issuing or renewing participatory notes for a period of one year. The ban was later lifted on appeal, as a result of a government tribunal ruling on September 9th, 2005.
- Nolmans, Erik (Nov. 14, 2005). "UBS Fastens its Seatbelts". '' FORTUNE '', p. 20.
- Hitler's Silent Partners: Swiss Banks, Nazi Gold (Meinli vs UBS)
- Pursuit of Justice (New York: Morrow 1997) by Isabel Vincent
