London jobs cut as UBS posts £5.6bn loss

by Gill Montia

Story link: London jobs cut as UBS posts £5.6bn loss

Swiss bank, UBS, is cutting its global workforce by 5,500; approximately 2,600 redundancies are expected at its London and New York investment banking units.

Around 9,000 staff are employed at the bank’s investment division in London and up to 900 jobs are believed to be at risk of compulsory redundancy.

UBS has been one of the biggest casualties of the credit crisis and the move comes as the bank posted losses of £5.6 billion for the first quarter of 2008.

The group also reported that its wealth management and business banking divisions have seen £960 million withdrawn from customer accounts in the first three months of the year.

The bank has confirmed that it has agreed the sale of part of its sub-prime mortgage book to BlackRock.

According to Marco Suter, UBS’s chief financial officer, exposure to the US sub-prime market had been reduced by 60% by the end of March.

Chief executive, Marcel Rohner, is hopeful that market demand for the banks remaining mortgage-related securities will return in the months ahead.

Meanwhile he is committed to restoring the bank’s reputation and ensuring that measures to reduce risk are effective.