UBS slashes investment bank, cuts profit targets

Swiss bank UBS said it would cut 2,000 investment bank jobs by 2016 as it slashes risky assets by almost half in a shift of focus back to the core business of managing the assets of the world's wealthy. At an annual investor event, UBS set a new return-on-equity target of 12-17 percent from a previous target of 15-20 percent that it had already abandoned in July in the face of tough new capital rules and turbulent markets in recent months.
UBS said its investment bank staff would be cut to 16,000 in 2016 from 18,000 now after it said in August it would cut 3,500 jobs - some 5 percent of its workforce - in a bid to save 2 billion Swiss francs ($2.2 billion) annually. The new strategy will be presented by new Chief Executive Sergio Ermotti, who took charge on an interim basis after Oswald Gruebel quit in September over the bank's $2 billion trading scandal, and was made permanent boss on Tuesday.