US
Like BofA (and sadly unlike RBS), Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan, UBS ranks among banks that have escaped the shackles of government funding. And in a remarkably rapid return to form, it intends to use its freedom to ramp up in fixed income and is proclaiming an increased appetite for risk
In last month’s Investor Presentation, UBS laid out plans to increase revenues in its debt unit to CHF8bn over the next three to five years, almost equivalent to the levels it achieved before La Crise.
This is all very well, except that according to Bloomberg, UBS now has 36% fewer fixed income staff than it had in 2007. It’s already hired 200 debt professionals this year, bringing the new total to 1,700, but is widely expected to continue recruiting in 2010 under Rajeev Misra, the new global head of credit trading hired from Deutsche in May, and Rob Joliffe, the former RBS banker brought out of retirement in November.
Given the tightness in the market, does this mean UBS will be revisiting the fixed income professionals it let go (many of them directly or indirectly responsible for the $52.5bn of writedowns it made during the credit crisis)?
One headhunter with fairly intimate knowledge of the matter says he wouldn’t rule it out: “I’m sure they’d be willing to rehire people,” he tells us.
So far, however, many of the big name hires have come from elsewhere.
In August, for example, UBS announced a swathe of 20 senior recruits for its FICC division from the likes of Goldman, Barclays Capital, Deutsche and Merrill Lynch.
Another headhunter says many of the people who left UBS (eg. Tareq Islam and his team, Neil Robertson and his team, Elaine Duckin, and various others), either left voluntarily or have either been re-housed elsewhere. They are therefore unlikely to want to back.
It’s also likely that Misra and Carsten Kengeter, the co-chief executive of the investment bank and former Goldman partner, will rather raid their previous employers than the ranks of UBS rejects and refuseniks
“If you believe that UBS can return to form, it’s a great time to join them,” says one headhunter. “It’s a recovery trade.”
what’s the point? In London most of their potential hires will want guaranteed bonuses and then some discretionary on top of that. With the new windfall tax no oone is being hired until summer 2010.
burgher I doubt that is true. If someone offered me a very high base salary for a year, for example, that could be enough to make me jump ship.
dr big swigning, I think he is referring to the MD level hires. Those guys don’t want to end up working for the taxman.