Questions to ask How has your experience at UBS been like? What do you think about UBS?

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/07/us-ubs-idUSTRE8160AA20120207 Why UBS? UBSs growth opportunities in Asia particularly, how it can better exploit its prized China banking licence and what more it can do to push its wealth management business through Singapore, an alternative hub to Switzerland for both Asian and Middle Eastern money and a franchise that even rivals admit has been largely unscathed by the Swiss banks woes.
Favorable Chinese wealth management market The Chinese financial services sector has been the centre of activity lately with a flood of new competitors entering the market. With relaxed regulations for foreign funded institutions and an increasing services market, China stands as an attractive market for wealth management operations. It is estimated that there will be almost 16 million wealthy individuals holding over $6.6 trillion in China by 2011. The number of wealthy individuals in China is expected to grow by 8% compound annually from 2010 to 2014, while their aggregate onshore liquid assets will grow 9.5% compound annually. Being the first foreign firm to invest directly and manage a full service domestic Chinese securities firm, Beijing Securities, UBS can capitalize on this growing trend.

UBS Market view Bullish Dollar View Worry about the Fed undertaking a third round of quantitative easing this year, how fatigued clients are about the Eurozone crisis and thus less willing to take aggressive short positions in the euro and how few investors have caught the move lower in the yen. This reinforces our bullish dollar view.

Its core competencies Further weakness in investment banking after a restructuring of the business failed to prevent an earnings hit from the euro zone debt crisis and worries about the global economy. Investment banks had a torrid time last year as trading and advisory income was hammered as clients pulled back from markets due to the euro zone debt crisis, and stopped doing deals. The outlook is set to remain dour as tougher regulations and economic slowdown bite. UBS, which announced in November it would scale back its investment bank business to focus on its flagship private bank WEAKER PRIVATE BANK

Meanwhile, the private bank failed to show it can pick up the slack from UBS's fading investment bank ambitions. Pretax profit and revenue both shriveled, in large part because clients shunned trading and investments amid market turmoil and uncertainty over Europe's debt and the U.S. budget deficit. UBS, which missed its own private banking margin target by far, appears to be sacrificing short-term profits in favor of a payout later and restoring its credibility as a trusted advisor to the wealthy. UBS's reputation has been battered by a series of scandals, beginning with an in-house hedge fund which gorged on U.S. mortgage securities and a messy U.S. probe into offshore accounts, and most recently, an alleged rogue trader. Now, the bank is advising many clients to be cautious in view of the euro zone troubles, arguably at the expense of revenue from fees and commissions, which live from client activity. "I certainly don't think the third and fourth quarter are the new normal. It could be around for another quarter or so, but I don't believe that is the environment of the future," UBS's financial head Tom Naratil said. Inflows at the UBS flagship private banking arm slipped to 3.1 billion Swiss francs in the fourth quarter from 3.8 billion in the previous quarter, while the gross margin on invested assets fell 6 basis points to 91 basis points. UBS stressed its eurozone exposure was relatively low, in comparison to Deutsche Bank which recently posted a fourth-quarter loss amid one-off charges such as Greek debt writedowns into the quarter. The trading scandal surrounding former UBS trader Kweku Adoboli will linger as he is set to stand trial in September after pleading not guilty to trades the Swiss bank says were unauthorized. UBS said investment banking head Carsten Kengeter would voluntarily forgo a bonus for 2011 after the scandal, while total bonuses for the bank will fall 40 percent and 60 percent in the investment bank. The bank is amortizing roughly 300 million francs this year for bonuses, in a bid to appease select managing directors at UBS's investment bank in areas including deal advisors, forex trading and leveraged loans buyouts. UBS said it had been granted some immunity by Switzerland's antitrust authority in return for cooperating with its probe into the potential manipulation of LIBOR. [ID:nL5E8D71M6] Several countries are investigating "improper attempts" to manipulate LIBOR rates, which is the benchmark price big banks set for interbank borrowing costs. WEKO said last week it was investigating 12 banks, including UBS.

Impact of financial crisis Cause- Belief assets were secure. Too much faith on ratings from agencies and own self risk assessment criteria

In reality, the biggest losers in a financial crisis usually are not those who have exposed themselves to major risks with their eyes wide open, but rather the ones who believed having their affairs well under

control. UBS was convinced that it had predominantly first-class subprime positions on its books, and had a very strong sense of security. Its image as a conservative bank was not made up to deceive the public, but corresponded fully with the picture the bank had of itself. It was only with the outbreak of the financial crisis that UBS realized that the high ratings that had been given to subprime paper were misleading