UBS Group AG is planning to cut more than half of Credit Suisse Group AG's 45,000-strong workforce starting next month as a result of the bank's emergency takeover.
Bankers, traders and support staff in Credit Suisse's investment bank in London, New York, and in some parts of Asia are expected to bear the brunt of the cuts, with almost all activities at risk, people familiar with the matter said.
Staffers have been told to expect three rounds of cuts this year, with the first expected by the end of July and two more rounds tentatively planned for September and October, the people added, asking not to be named as the plans aren't public.
Three months after UBS agreed to buy Credit Suisse in a government-brokered rescue, the full extent of the job cuts is starting to become clear.
UBS, whose combined workforce jumped to about 120,000 when the deal closed, has said it aims to save some $6 billion in staff costs in the coming years.
UBS intends to ultimately reduce the total combined headcount by about 30%, or 35,000 people, two of the people said. That's broadly in line with an overall reduction of around 30,000 estimated by analysts at Redburn in a report on UBS this month.
Shares of UBS gained as much as 2% in U.S. trading.
A spokesperson for UBS declined to comment on the job exits.
Cuts Across the Sector
The cull of staff at the Swiss will dramatically worsen what was already a dismal year for financial sector jobs worldwide, after Wall Street investment banks including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. announced their own cuts of thousands of staff.
The combined firm's executive ranks already display UBS's dominance. The executive board contains only one Credit Suisse holdover, Ulrich Koerner, who remains CEO of the acquired bank. In the key wealth management unit, only five of the more than two dozen leadership appointments come from Credit Suisse.
UBS Chief Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti said that the integration was going "very well," at an event in Zurich on Tuesday.
UBS signaled early in the takeover that it intends to drastically cut back the numbers at Credit Suisse's loss-making investment bank, which was the source of the $5.5 billion loss in the Archegos Capital Management scandal in 2021.
