UBS, Switzerland's biggest bank, reported a third straight quarterly loss on costs tied to cutting jobs and charges from an improvement in the company's own debt.
The net loss widened to €1.4 billion Swiss francs (€920 million) in the second quarter from 395 million francs a year earlier, the Zurich-based bank said in a statement today.
Chief executive Oswald Gruebel, who cut 7,500 jobs and sold a Brazilian unit since joining in February, said that while markets improved in the second quarter, a sustainable economic recovery was not yet visible.
A settlement of the US lawsuit seeking data on 52,000 clients may bring UBS closer to Gruebel's goal of halting withdrawals by wealth management clients, which amounted to 22.3 billion francs in the quarter.
UBS also failed to stem outflows of money from its wealth management divisions in the three months to the end of June. It reported outflows of 17.1 billion Swiss francs from its Global Asset Management division and 16.5 billion Swiss francs from its Wealth Management and Swiss bank.
Before the second quarter, UBS had amassed $53.1 billion in writedowns and losses from the financial crisis and had to raise more than $38 billion to replenish capital from investors including the Swiss government.
The bank said in June it expected a loss for the second quarter. Zurich-based Credit Suisse Group AG,
which declined government aid, posted its second consecutive quarterly profit in July, beating estimates
as revenue from trading doubled.
Bloomberg