There are rumblings in the US wealth management business at UBS, the Swiss bank asked dozens of branch managers in the United States to find new jobs internally by early next year, as reported by the US industry portal «Advisor Hub». 

«A Joke»

Various UBS executives have already approached headhunters to be placed, with one recruiter who previously worked at UBS calling the internal application process «a joke.» 

As many as 36 branch manager positions are said to be eliminated among over 260 US locations, although not all of the branches have managers or «market directors» as they will be called. UBS did not want to comment on the allegations to the portal. A request for comment from finews.com on the matter remains without a response.

More Expensive

The US is considered the world's largest wealth management market and is by the number of employees the largest market region in the asset management of UBS. As the world's largest private bank, the Swiss institution has high ambitions for the region and recently made a strategic shift there. After the canceled acquisition of digital wealth manager Wealthfront, it will fully focus on the business with super-rich private clients again.

The Americas are an expensive cost center for the group. According to UBS's figures for the past third quarter, the region had the worst cost-to-income ratio at 83 percent, compared with 60 percent in its Swiss home market. At $600 million, it had the second lowest pre-tax profit of all the world's regions.

The Right Path?

Given the difficult overall environment for asset managers, cost-cutting measures are the obvious choice that now falls on Naureen Hassan, the new Americas president following the departure of UBS veteran Tom Naratil, to implement those measures. Swiss manager Iqbal Khan has overall responsibility for the bank's global wealth management business.