UBS wealth unit reports record profits, inflows

UBS AG reported improved first-quarter results for its U.S. retail-wealth-management business, with a record pretax profit of $251 million, as well as a record $9.2 billion in net new money. In an earnings report released last week, UBS said that results in its U.S. retail unit were driven by the addition of new brokers, continued low attrition and better collaboration efforts with its global family office business. Overall, UBS AG posted a pretax operating profit of $1.56 billion in the first quarter, up from a loss of $1.98 billion in the prior quarter, when the Swiss bank took a $1.5 billion charge in settling a London Interbank Offered Rate manipulation case with regulators.

Healthy signs

Its U.S. retail business, Wealth Management Americas, saw revenue hold steady at $1.74 billion in the first quarter, compared with the prior quarter, up 11% from $1.57 billion a year earlier. The financial adviser head count was 7,065 as of the end of March, up from 7,015 a year earlier. The U.S. business also achieved record client assets of $891 billion, up 6% from $843 billion in the fourth quarter of 2012 and up 10% from $807 billion in last year's first quarter. (Included in clients' asset figures are both new investments and growth in existing assets.)

'Renewed interest'

Assets per U.S. adviser also hit a record, reaching $126 million in the first quarter. In its earnings release, UBS said that investors globally showed a “renewed interest early in the first quarter” but that unresolved issues with the European debt situation and fiscal issues in the United States “would continue to exert a strong influence on client confidence [and] activity.” For more than a year, UBS has been engaged in restructuring to cut risk levels, and focus on wealth and asset management, while paring back capital-intensive investment banking activities. UBS last fall said that it planned to accelerate its revamp, cutting another $3.7 billion in costs on top of previously planned savings of $2.2 billion over the next three years. The bank is also cutting 10,000 employees over that period, from the 64,000 it had last fall.