The Swiss bank's new boss sat down with a print outlet for the first time, addressing a money laundering scandal, job cuts in a strategy review, and consequences from $800 million in losses from Archegos.
Only in Switzerland: Eight months into the top job at UBS, Ralph Hamers granted his first sit-down interview with a press outlet to «Blick» (in German). Save for regular quarterly appearances on financial broadcasters, the 55-year-old has eschewed interviews, in part because of a surprise issue which has complicated his start at the Zurich-based bank.
The Swiss tabloid, with whom the Swiss bank has long maintained close ties, doesn't spare him deeply personal questions, eliciting Hamers' religious views and the fact that the CEO, who settled in a tax-friendly canton next to Zurich, has enjoyed discovering the area's hillsides on his racing bike and with his wife swam in Lake Zug well into November of last year.
Sweating Out Probe
The interview is thinner on issues front and center to investors: Hamers said a revived criminal investigation into him while he ran ING «doesn't affect my work at UBS at all» and voiced confidence he would sit it out. «Of course the matter is always at the back of my mind, but I am fully focused on UBS.»
He indicated that UBS hadn't yet decided it it will personnel measures following its first-quarter losses with Archegos, a family office-hedge fund which wreaked havoc at crosstown rival Credit Suisse.
«Archegos is not a systemic issue, but a unique, nearly incomparable event, coupled with lack of transparency. We will no longer accept this,» Hamers said, adding that UBS had «learned its lessons» from the fallout.
Swiss Job Moves
The «Blick» didn't ask Hamers about speculation of a partial or entire UBS-Credit Suisse tie-up. Hamers tells the outlet that UBS doesn't plan widespread job cuts, but may not be able to avoid some layoffs.
The Swiss bank is poised to tell staff it will let as many UBS plans to allow up to two-thirds of its 71,779 staff a hybrid workstyle from either home or its offices, for the foreseeable future, according to the «Financial Times» (behind paywall). The bank will continue to require «hands-on» staff in dealing rooms or branches to be on-site, the British outlet reported.
Upskilling Workers
Hamers told «Blick» the Swiss wealth giant will «upskill», in that it will seek employees who are willing and able to shepard a more digital version of itself, deploying big data and artificial intelligence, for example.
«Some of our colleagues will retrain and remain with us, but we also have some colleagues who don't want to take this transformation step with us,» he said. The CEO underwhelmed bank watchers two months ago with a relatively vague technology-driven strategy, as finews.com commented.
