HONG KONG • UBS Group is cutting nearly two dozen jobs at its Asian investment banking business, mainly in Hong Kong and Singapore, as part of a push to slash costs, said people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The Swiss bank joins rivals in making cost cuts in investment banking across Asia as deal volume remains sluggish. The latest round of job cuts at UBS will involve mostly mid-level staff, but those affected also include a few managing directors, said the people, declining to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Wall Street banks are grappling with a harsh environment in Asia because the region's economies and markets have failed to deliver sustained growth since the 2008 financial crisis. Their business has also been eroded by local competitors, notably aggressive Chinese firms.
One of the sources said the cuts at UBS could involve as many as 20 bankers. It has about 550 investment bankers in Asia, including China, a source said. A spokesman for UBS in Hong Kong declined to comment.
Equity activity in Asia ex-Japan stock exchanges slumped 30 per cent during the first nine months of the year, with US$140.7 billion (S$203 billion) worth of deals - weighed down by a steep decline in follow-on share offerings, Thomson Reuters data showed.
After leading the equity capital market (ECM) league table in Asia for several years, UBS fell to fourth place during the first nine months of the year, down from second place during the same period a year earlier, the data showed. Mr Damien Brosnan, the bank's co-head of ECM for Asia, will leave at the end of the month, Thomson Reuters publication IFR reported on Thursday.
Barclays, Goldman Sachs and Standard Chartered are among Western banks that have reduced their headcounts for investment banking in Asia this year.
Standard Chartered is also set to cut about a tenth of its global corporate and institutional banking headcount across all major business centres, starting with Singapore and Hong Kong, as the bank steps up an aggressive drive to reduce costs.
In October, UBS maintained its gloomy outlook amid negative interest rates in Switzerland and economic uncertainty, which has kept many investors on the sidelines.
REUTERS
