UBS Making Job Cuts In Asia-Pacific Region To Reduce Costs

As part of its cost-reduction and business-streamlining efforts, UBS Group AG (NYSE:UBS) has begun slashing nearly 40 jobs in the Asia-Pacific region, as reported by Bloomberg.

The job cut will be affecting both front- and back-office positions of UBS’ markets and investment-banking teams. Notably, majority of the workforce reductions will be at the vice president level or below.

Specifically, major centres of Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo will experience job reductions. Further, the Asian region is likely to experience smaller number of job cuts compared to those planned for Europe, as this region is expected to witness growth in the upcoming period.

Moreover, in order to restructure the investment banking division, the company is combining its trading operations, and making changes in senior management. In sync with this, in September, UBS announced that it is combining its main equities division with smaller foreign exchange, rates and credit trading (FRC) operations to create single ‘Global Markets’ securities and trading division. This division will be headed by Jason Barron and George Athanasopoulos.

Also, Ros L’Esperance and Javier Oficialdegui would serve as global co-heads of the recently-renamed Global Banking unit, which will include global M&A, IPOs and capital-market activities.

UBS is not the only global bank which is retrenching jobs. Several other banks, including Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB) , HSBC Holdings (NYSE:C) and Citigroup (NYSE:C) , have been taking measures to trim costs by reducing workforce.

Our Take

Though UBS is focused on building capital levels, global expansion and executing restructuring initiatives, the company’s net interest income remains under pressure, thanks to falling interest rates. Also, involvement in several lawsuits and regulatory probes is likely to keep the bank’s costs elevated.

UBS’ shares have lost 8.3% so far this year, as against the industry’s rally of 4.2%.

Currently, UBS carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell).

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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