Swiss bank reports huge loss in quarter
Güncelleme Tarihi:
The Associated Press
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Mayıs 06, 2009 00:00
ZURICH - UBS, the Swiss bank hit hard by the financial crisis and a U.S. legal probe into its American clients' offshore accounts, reported yesterday a first-quarter net loss of 1.98 billion Swiss francs ($1.73 billion) and said it expects loan losses to keep rising.
UBS, which replaced its CEO, chairman and several other senior officials after record losses of some 21 billion francs last year, also said customer withdrawals continued in the first quarter.
The quarterly loss compared with a 11.62 billion francs shortfall a year earlier, and was cautiously welcomed by investors and analysts as a sign that the new management is taking necessary steps to turn the business around.
The Swiss bank, which has already paid $780 million in fines and restitutions to settle allegations it helped U.S. customers evade taxes, said its investment banking unit recorded a pretax loss of 3.16 billion francs. Its wealth management and Swiss bank unit saw a pretax profit of 1.08 billion francs, with the wealth management Americas unit recorded a loss of 35 million francs.
Global asset management made a pretax loss of 59 million francs, blamed on charges related to the sale of its Brazilian unit UBS Pactual, while the corporate center recorded a profit of 621 million francs, attributed to the purchase of toxic assets by the Swiss National Bank.
Customers concerned
UBS said customer withdrawals continued, with outflows in its wealth management and Swiss bank unit totaling 23.4 billion in the first quarter.
Global asset management saw withdrawals of 7.7 billion francs, while wealth management Americas saw net inflows of 16.2 billion francs. Overall, the company said its total assets fell by 153.49 billion francs to 1.86 trillion francs.
It was recently overtaken as Switzerland's largest bank by market capitalization by Credit Suisse, which last month reported a 2 billion francs first-quarter net profit.
The quarterly loss compared with a 11.62 billion francs shortfall a year earlier, and was cautiously welcomed by investors and analysts as a sign that the new management is taking necessary steps to turn the business around.
The Swiss bank, which has already paid $780 million in fines and restitutions to settle allegations it helped U.S. customers evade taxes, said its investment banking unit recorded a pretax loss of 3.16 billion francs. Its wealth management and Swiss bank unit saw a pretax profit of 1.08 billion francs, with the wealth management Americas unit recorded a loss of 35 million francs.
Global asset management made a pretax loss of 59 million francs, blamed on charges related to the sale of its Brazilian unit UBS Pactual, while the corporate center recorded a profit of 621 million francs, attributed to the purchase of toxic assets by the Swiss National Bank.
Customers concerned
UBS said customer withdrawals continued, with outflows in its wealth management and Swiss bank unit totaling 23.4 billion in the first quarter.
Global asset management saw withdrawals of 7.7 billion francs, while wealth management Americas saw net inflows of 16.2 billion francs. Overall, the company said its total assets fell by 153.49 billion francs to 1.86 trillion francs.
It was recently overtaken as Switzerland's largest bank by market capitalization by Credit Suisse, which last month reported a 2 billion francs first-quarter net profit.