© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The logo of Swiss bank UBS is seen at an office building in Zurich, Switzerland October 25, 2022. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo
By Noele Illien
ZURICH (Reuters) -UBS said on Tuesday it had completed the first phase of integrating fallen rival Credit Suisse, was benefiting from net new asset flows and plans to restart share buybacks in the second half of the year, with up to $1 billion slated for 2024.
The Swiss bank affirmed key financial targets and set new ones including an ambition for its wealth management arm to boost invested assets to $5 trillion by 2028 from $3.85 trillion currently.
It is also aiming to see net new assets of $200 billion flow into the bank per year by 2028. Clients have entrusted the bank with $77 billion of net new assets since the acquisition, it said.
“With enhanced scale and capabilities across our leading client franchises and improved resource discipline, we will drive sustainable long-term growth and higher returns,” CEO Sergio Ermotti said in a statement.
It proposed a dividend of $0.70 per share for 2023, a 27% increase.
UBS also revealed it was targeting $13 billion in cost savings by the end of 2026, with half expected by the end of this year.
The cost of absorbing Credit Suisse led the world’s biggest wealth manager to post a net loss of $279 million in the fourth quarter, slightly smaller than a company-compiled consensus estimate for a $285 million loss.
The share buybacks, which will restart after the merger with Credit Suisse is finalised, are a long-awaited move.
The lender’s previous $6 billion program from 2022 was initially slated to end in March 2024 but was put on hold following the Credit Suisse acquisition.
“Our ambition is for share repurchases to exceed our pre-acquisition levels by 2026,” the bank said.
UBS’s investment bank reported a pretax loss of $169 million but is expected to return to profitability in the first quarter “due to improving market activity, a growing banking pipeline and advanced progress on the integration.”
Since the shotgun takeover was announced last March – marking the first-ever merger of two global systemically important banks, UBS has managed to avoid any major ructions and has seen its share price jump some 50%.
That said, it has still to tackle some of the trickier stages of integrating the two banks such as combining the separate IT systems as well as its legal entities.
The bank is set to begin migrating Credit Suisse clients, with clients in Singapore, Hong Kong and Luxembourg the first to be moved.
Concerns also abound about the potential for friction with regulators who worry about risks to the Swiss economy should the now-huge bank get into trouble and given its dominance of key areas like domestic commercial lending. UBS’s balance sheet has expanded to be worth more more than $1.6 trillion, nearly twice the size of Switzerland’s economy.
UBS has said the focus on its balance sheet is misleading, adding that it holds around 20% of total assets in highly liquid assets and another 15% in low-risk mortgages to retail and wealthy clients.
