6-K 1 bestofswitzerlandtran.htm bestofswitzerlandtran
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
_________________
FORM 6-K
REPORT OF FOREIGN PRIVATE
 
ISSUER
PURSUANT TO RULE 13a-16 OR 15d-16 UNDER
THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
Date: September 11, 2024
UBS Group AG
(Registrant's Name)
Bahnhofstrasse 45, 8001 Zurich, Switzerland
(Address of principal executive office)
Commission File Number: 1-36764
UBS AG
(Registrant's Name)
Bahnhofstrasse 45, 8001 Zurich, Switzerland
Aeschenvorstadt 1, 4051 Basel, Switzerland
 
(Address of principal executive offices)
Commission File Number: 1-15060
 
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant files or will file annual
 
reports under cover of Form
20-F or Form 40-
F.
Form 20-F
 
 
Form 40-F
 
 
This Form 6-K consists of Q&A transcript related to the UBS Best
 
of Switzerland conference held on
September 11, 2024, which appear immediately following this page.
 
1
UBS Best of Switzerland
Conference 2024
 
11 September 2024
Speeches by
Sergio P. Ermotti
, Group Chief Executive
 
Officer,
 
and
 
Sabine Keller-Busse
, President Switzerland
 
and Personal & Corporate
 
Banking
Including Fireside
 
Q&A
Transcript.
Numbers for slides refer to the UBS Best of Switzerland
 
Conference presentation. Materials
 
and a
webcast replay are available
 
at
www.ubs.com/presentations
 
Sergio P.
 
Ermotti
Welcome to our annual Best of Switzerland conference.
Let me start by saying thank you for the
 
trust and confidence you place in UBS and
 
for joining us today.
It is our privilege to bring this group of clients on the
 
corporate and investor side together in our
 
home market.
This is the 27th time that we are hosting this flagship
 
conference. This continuity underscores the relevance of
Switzerland and our Swiss clients to UBS, and
 
the importance of the Swiss equity
 
market both domestically and
internationally.
You are
 
about to hear from market-leading companies
 
– companies that have shaped Switzerland’s
 
reputation
as one of the world’s most innovative and competitive
 
economies globally.
We are envied as a small nation that punches well above its
 
weight. This is largely due to our diverse
 
corporate
landscape, consisting of both large multinationals
 
and SMEs. And while some try to suggest
 
a conflict between
larger and smaller firms – a key concern
 
for me – I am convinced that it is the combination
 
of large and small,
of domestic and international, and of
 
broad-based and specialized firms that has
 
made Switzerland the
prosperous country we know.
At UBS, we take our responsibility to Switzerland, our
 
economy and our communities seriously.
 
2
Thanks to our financial strength, strong Swiss roots and international
 
connectivity, we can offer expertise and
solutions to support companies, both big and
 
small. As a partner to over 200 thousand large,
 
medium and
small companies and one thousand pension
 
funds, we help businesses succeed and thrive
 
– by providing
financing, advice and access to our global network
 
and international presence.
 
The integration with Credit Suisse has further broadened
 
and deepened the offering of products and services
 
to
our Swiss and international clients.
 
As such, we are an even stronger pillar of Switzerland’s
 
position as the
leading international wealth management
 
hub. It is this position that allows our
 
country to attract excess
savings from around the world, lowering the financing
 
costs for our households and corporations.
I’m pleased with the progress we have made in our integration
 
over the past 15 months. We are also mindful
of the challenges we will be facing in the next
 
phase, in particular when it comes
 
to client migration and IT
adjustments.
Looking ahead, the macro-economic outlook is increasingly uncertain,
 
with ongoing geopolitical tensions,
monetary easing and the US elections contributing
 
to heightened volatility.
At the same time, companies are weighing up the
 
opportunities and challenges created by emerging
technologies such as Generative AI, increasing regulation
 
and geopolitical and reputational risk.
You can continue to count on us for strategic advice, thought leadership and to stay
 
on top of market trends as
you navigate this increasingly complex environment.
I wish you a productive and enjoyable conference.
 
Sabine Keller-Busse
Slide 1 – Key messages
Thank you Jens. Good morning, ladies
 
and gentlemen.
 
It’s been a year since we started the integration
 
of Credit Suisse Swiss Bank into UBS. I’m now pleased
 
to give
you an update on the importance of our
 
home market and our way forward here in Switzerland.
After we were asked by Swiss authorities to step in
 
to rescue Credit Suisse, we stabilized its client franchise
 
in a
matter of weeks. The merger of the Swiss
 
entities in July of this year was an important
 
milestone, and we are
now in the middle of the big task of integrating
 
the two banks.
The Credit Suisse crisis showed the importance of having
 
a sound and sustainable business model
 
with a pricing
that reflects the underlying risks and allows for adequate
 
levels of profitability. It is therefore our duty to fix the
structural issues that we inherited and get back
 
to the return levels UBS had before the acquisition.
 
Only with
this we can remain a strong and reliable long-term partner for
 
our clients and the Swiss economy.
The rescue of
 
Credit Suisse by UBS
 
combines two leading franchises in Switzerland…
 
and both UBS clients and
former Credit Suisse
 
clients are benefitting
 
from our combined
 
strength. We are
 
excited that
 
our clients will
 
enjoy
a greater offering, closer proximity and even better client
 
experience. And we are totally committed to
 
our Swiss
clients and our home market.
 
 
3
Slide 6 – A cornerstone of the Swiss
 
economy
UBS has grown into a global leader, but our identity has always been rooted in our Swissness.
Our heritage goes back over 160 years and
 
our story includes the integration of more than 500
 
financial
businesses, including banks, asset managers
 
and brokers. Each of these acquisitions and mergers
 
have enriched
our culture and contributed to our wealth of experience.
The acquisition of Credit Suisse is a continuation of
 
that story.
Credit Suisse itself has a long and rich history, going back to pioneer Alfred Escher in the middle
 
of the 19th
century. For the vast majority of its history, it was a good and solid bank – both in Switzerland and
internationally. It had built strong client relationships and a high quality workforce which we are excited to
 
have
welcomed at UBS here in Switzerland.
Switzerland is not only UBS’s heritage and
 
home market. Today,
 
it remains one of the key pillars of the Group’s
strategy. It is also the region where we deploy around 30% of our capital which is more than any other region,
and earn a similar proportion of revenues.
It is also where we employ most people. We are proud to be the country’s
 
third largest private employer. We
invest a lot into developing the next generation
 
of talent, with 2,300 junior staff currently in our apprenticeship
and trainee programs. This is equal to the sum of
 
the two banks pre-acquisition. And the survey
 
by Universum
recently showed that business students in Switzerland
 
choose UBS as their preferred employer. With 2.6 billion
in taxes paid by the corporation and our employees
 
in 2023, UBS is one of the country’s
 
largest taxpayers and
deeply embedded in the local economy, as purchases of goods and services for almost
 
4 billion francs per year
demonstrate. Furthermore, we are providing our home market
 
with around 350 billion Swiss francs in credit.
Our global reach, combined with our country-wide
 
footprint and cutting-edge products, services and
capabilities, makes us unique in Switzerland.
 
This has earned us the label best
 
bank in Switzerland in each of
the last 10 years.
It is our commitment and responsibility towards our clients
 
to be a reliable and stable partner. Not just when
the sun is shining but also, and even more importantly, in times of need.
We demonstrated this commitment during the Covid
 
crisis. We were able to play a leading role in establishing
the SME lending program and providing our clients with
 
much-needed liquidity in record speed.
And last year,
 
the UBS balance
 
sheet for all
 
seasons with a
 
strong capital position,
 
proven risk standards
 
and a
sustainable business model
 
allowed us
 
to do
 
even more.
 
We stepped
 
up when
 
we were
 
asked to
 
stabilize the
Swiss and international capital markets
 
by rescuing Credit Suisse.
Slide 3 – UBS stepped in at time of need
By the beginning of 2023, Credit Suisse’s structural
 
lack of profitability and growing funding gap had practically
made it unviable.
In the Swiss Bank division, structural issues
 
were starting to hurt the bottom line even earlier, from the
beginning of 2022. This is remarkable given the sharp
 
rise in interest rates during 2022 and 2023, which
provided a strong tailwind to bank profits across the board. Instead, Credit Suisse’s
 
Swiss Bank profits declined
by nearly half.
Clients got uncomfortable with this and the
 
growing list of scandals. Credit Suisse was slowly but steadily
 
losing
the foundation of its existence – the trust of
 
its clients.
 
 
4
And this eventually led to two bank runs over
 
a time span of 6 months. The second of
 
those two proved the
final drop that caused the end of Credit Suisse as we knew
 
it.
But fortunately and to the benefit of the
 
Swiss economy and global financial markets,
 
UBS was stronger than
ever.
During that
 
last bank
 
run, a
 
significant portion
 
of the
 
deposits that
 
Credit
 
Suisse had
 
been losing
 
were being
transferred to us. That sign
 
of trust gave us the
 
confidence that we could stabilize
 
Credit Suisse as we stepped
 
in
to be part of the solution.
Slide 4 – Our strength and focus allowed us to stabilize
 
CS’s client franchise
 
And that is exactly what we did. Outflows turned
 
into inflows almost immediately following
 
the merger of the
holding companies in June of 2023. We stabilized Credit Suisse’s
 
client franchise, protecting its value and most
importantly providing certainty and safety to clients.
We have also been successful in keeping our best staff.
 
We gained many great people from Credit Suisse who
are further thriving at UBS. And where advisors did decide to
 
leave, we have been able to keep the vast
majority of the assets of the clients they served.
And contrary to
 
some of the
 
noise in the
 
public space, our
 
indicators show growing
 
support for the
 
combined
bank. For example, the surveys we conduct show improvements in people’s opinion of UBS across
 
Credit Suisse
clients
 
and
 
the
 
broader
 
public.
 
Our
 
strong
 
business
 
momentum
 
is
 
another
 
indicator.
 
And
 
we
 
frequently
 
get
unprompted feedback from clients that they are grateful that we
 
rescued Credit Suisse.
Slide 5 – We are executing on our integration plans with discipline
 
The rescue of Credit Suisse and the subsequent business
 
stabilization was followed by an intense period
stretching over more than 20 weeks during which we thoroughly assessed
 
various possible options for the
Swiss Bank. The conclusion of our thorough analysis
 
was that a full integration into UBS was the
 
only realistic
scenario given structural issues at Credit Suisse. We took
 
this decision in the best interest of stakeholders, most
important of which our clients, as well as
 
the Swiss financial center.
Since then, we have been executing on
 
the integration with focus and determination
 
– combining speed and
the necessary precaution. We have already achieved several key
 
milestones so far. Most notably the successful
merger of our two Swiss legal entities on the 1st
 
of July of this year. This laid the foundation for the most
critical part of the process: migrating clients over
 
to the UBS platform – which will eventually
 
unlock the full
synergy potential. For some more complex clients
 
we have already started a manual onboarding process, but
for most clients in Switzerland, the migration
 
will happen in waves throughout 2025.
We are determined to make
 
this transition as easy
 
and seamless as possible
 
for our clients. And
 
we are excited at
the prospect of unlocking the full benefits of the merger for them. We will operate from one platform, allowing
our clients to benefit from enhanced capabilities and
 
an expanded offering.
 
 
5
Slide 6 – Aligned CS Switzerland’s organization
 
setup to UBS’s, focusing on client
 
needs
 
Firstly, as we reported in April of this year,
 
we aligned the Credit Suisse business setup
 
to that of UBS to
support a more cohesive client experience.
At UBS, we are convinced our clients’ needs are best served
 
by business divisions which specialize on
 
specific
client needs, but closely collaborate on a regional level.
 
This model allows clients to benefit from global
products and expertise tailored to regional needs, while allowing us
 
to unlock efficiencies of scale.
Credit Suisse’s financial and segment reporting was substantially
 
different from UBS’s. The Credit Suisse Swiss
Bank perimeter, as you can see on this slide, contained much more than just the Personal
 
and Corporate bank.
In the
 
rest of
 
this presentation
 
we will
 
focus on
 
the combined Personal
 
and Corporate Banking
 
division within
Switzerland. Where
 
we talk
 
about Credit
 
Suisse P&C,
 
both today
 
and in
 
terms of
 
historical figures,
 
we are
 
referring
to the aligned P&C scope within Credit Suisse, which
 
offers better transparency for comparisons.
Slide 7 – Reinforcing our position as the leading Swiss
 
personal and corporate bank
 
P&C will continue to be UBS’s second largest
 
division, contributing close to 30% of
 
the Group’s pre-tax profit.
In Personal Banking, we now serve over 3
 
million personal clients or around a third of Swiss households.
 
Clients
know us for our leading digital offering and premium
 
products and service.
Swiss corporate and institutional clients have
 
always been at the heart of both UBS
 
and Credit Suisse. What
differentiates us from competitors is our holistic offering and global connectivity. We now serve more than
200,000 corporate and institutional clients,
 
including a third of all corporates in Switzerland.
 
For large caps,
UBS and Credit Suisse’s footprints were very similar. However for other corporates and real estate clients and
particularly in the SME space, UBS had a
 
significantly larger footprint, banking around 70% more firms
 
than
Credit Suisse. And we remain fully focused on these clients.
In P&C, as is the case for the group as a whole, our
 
strategy did not change with the acquisition of
 
Credit
Suisse. It was enhanced, as was the offering in our Personal,
 
Corporate and Institutional clients.
Having said that, there are very few areas of the former Credit Suisse business
 
that do not fit our proven risk
appetite or do not have a clear connection
 
to the Swiss economy. From these, we are reallocating capital and
investment into our strategic franchises.
But let me be clear: Credit Suisse clients will be able to
 
find at UBS almost everything they had before – and
more. It is only in a few, small areas where this is not the case. And these areas add up to far less than
 
1% of
our business and client base. To give an example – we are discontinuing Factoring, a risky type of
 
lending UBS
stopped years ago. Fewer than 200 clients
 
were using this service at Credit Suisse and we are working jointly
with them to find alternatives, where possible.
But now let’s move on to what’s in it for our
 
clients.
 
 
6
Slide 8 – Private clients will benefit from even better services
 
and digital capabilities
 
Personal Banking is strategic to our Swiss
 
business and clients will benefit from our
 
consistent investments into
products, services and capabilities.
Thanks to our country-wide reach, Credit Suisse clients
 
will have access to double the amount of branches
Credit Suisse had on its own. We are closing duplicate branch locations
 
and will keep the best ones. And more
Credit Suisse clients will now get the service of a dedicated
 
advisor.
For clients who can and want to conduct their
 
banking business online, we are Switzerland’s
 
most digital bank.
Over the past 3 years, we have invested more than
 
300 million francs into digitizing our products
 
and services,
and we have seen mobile banking app usage
 
increase by more than 40% in the last 18 months alone.
And investing in our digital capabilities continues
 
to be a top strategic priority for the
 
future. Our combined
scale gives us even more firepower, in terms of investment spend. And by combining the best digital
 
and AI
experts across UBS and Credit Suisse, we will lift our already-leading
 
digital offering to an even higher level. We
have compared our digital offering to CSX, and will create a “best
 
of both worlds” experience by incorporating
some of its most attractive features before the migration.
 
And this
 
will benefit all of our clients.
We will
 
also continue to
 
operate Bank-now,
 
one of
 
Switzerland’s leading consumer finance
 
banks, as a
 
100%
subsidiary of UBS Switzerland AG.
 
Slide 9 – Combining the best of both worlds
 
for Swiss corporates and institutions
Combining the strong corporate and institutional franchises,
 
our clients will get access to an even broader set
of products and services.
For example, we now offer a full range of export
 
financing products for SMEs and for large corporates
 
in
Switzerland by embedding Credit Suisse’s complementary
 
capabilities as lead arranger.
All our clients can now benefit from the leading
 
strength of Credit Suisse’s mid-market capabilities. On the
other side, former Credit Suisse small-
 
and mid-sized clients can now use M&A
 
and succession planning services
for which a higher client-
 
and deal-size threshold existed at Credit Suisse. In this
 
way, we can provide an even
more comprehensive service to family-owned businesses
 
and SMEs.
To
 
support their corporate activities abroad, former Credit Suisse
 
clients can now access our local coverage
teams providing corporate banking services in Hong
 
Kong, Singapore, New York and Frankfurt.
In IB research, clients from both the UBS and Credit Suisse sides have access
 
to a broader coverage universe.
We have now expanded our coverage of Swiss-listed
 
stocks beyond the combined coverage of
 
both banks
before the merger which benefits both our corporate
 
and institutional clients.
And as we integrate our offering, we continue to
 
innovate. For example, we recently launched Instant
 
Business
Credit in e-banking for corporate clients.
So
 
as
 
you
 
can
 
see,
 
we
 
are
 
determined to
 
make
 
the UBS-Credit
 
Suisse
 
combination a
 
win/win for
 
clients and
shareholders. Only then we can create sustainable value
 
for the long run.
 
 
 
7
Slide 10 – Addressing the root causes of CS P&C’s issues
As we continue to focus on our clients,
 
we are also fixing Credit Suisse’s structural issues in P&C. A deeper
 
dive
into these reveals a clear necessity to restructure certain parts of the
 
business. Credit Suisse had realized this too
and had started addressing these issues in 2022. By
 
then it was too late.
Firstly, at UBS, building holistic client relationships is a strategic priority that fits with
 
our disciplined approach to
capital. This was less the case historically at
 
Credit Suisse, which is why some client relationships are now over-
reliant on lending. Sometimes these loans were priced
 
at levels that did not reflect the underlying risks, or
 
did
not even cover the cost of capital. This issue was
 
made worse by declining trust that clients
 
had in CS – they
transferred their money out and did less and less business,
 
while their loan balances remained unchanged.
Secondly, risk standards were not adequately set and consistently enforced, resulting in a credit book that
caused P&L volatility. Over the last year, Credit Suisse positions created 6 times as much stage 3 net credit
impairments as UBS’s per billion of loans.
Personal Banking had a suboptimal footprint and
 
was chronically underinvested in. This led to
 
structurally low
profitability in that segment. The CSX app could only
 
go so far in masking the underlying issues
 
in the retail
segment as a whole.
And lastly, continuous deposit outflows left the bank with a significant and expensive
 
loan overhang and
deposit shortfall of around 65 billion or nearly
 
30% of Credit Suisse Switzerland’s balance sheet at
 
the time.
And these issues undermined the profitability and stability
 
of Credit Suisse, which eventually became fatal.
Slide 11 – Restoring sustainable profitability levels
 
in line with the best-in-class
That’s why we are convinced – as we have always been
 
– that our business has to be sustainably
 
profitable.
Only a profitable business is a healthy business. It
 
is a prerequisite to remain a safe, strong and reliable partner
to our clients and to the Swiss economy in the
 
long term.
One immediate priority therefore is to restore the profitability to the level that UBS
 
achieved before the merger.
A pre-tax return on attributed equity of around 19% is
 
appropriate for a high-quality franchise like ours.
We
 
aim
 
to
 
get
 
back
 
to
 
this
 
level
 
by
 
capitalizing
 
on
 
opportunities
 
for
 
growth,
 
right-sizing
 
our
 
cost
 
base,
 
and
optimizing our balance sheet.
Slide 12 – Supporting clients while growing in strategic
 
areas
Starting with our opportunities for growth.
Switzerland is an economy known for its stability. Growth is modest, but steady and resilient.
 
Interest rates are
structurally low and on downward trajectory since
 
the Swiss National Bank was the first
 
across developed
countries to start cutting rates in March.
Considering these macro factors, we do see opportunities
 
to expand and grow faster than GDP in areas of
strategic importance.
And it starts with making sure all of our clients are aware of the
 
benefits of the extended offering that is now
available for them.
 
8
Together with our Wealth Management division, we are also focused on growing our business with
entrepreneurs. No other bank is able to cover the corporate
 
and private financial needs of these clients
 
as well
as we can. And that means no one else
 
is able to capture the value creation during the lifecycle of
 
an
entrepreneur.
It starts with supporting business founders as
 
they set up and grow their company by delivering
 
the whole firm
to our clients. When the owner at some
 
point fully or partially sells the enterprise
 
– usually in an M&A
transaction or an IPO – we support the Entrepreneur’s transition
 
to Investor and become their wealth manager.
As the entrepreneur’s wealth manager, we advise them on how to invest their liquidity. And often we can show
them private market opportunities to invest
 
in other entrepreneurs’ businesses, which is where we go full circle.
Other
 
areas
 
where
 
we
 
see
 
growth
 
opportunities
 
are
 
our
 
leading
 
affluent
 
franchise
 
where
 
we
 
can
 
leverage
technology even better, asset servicing, retirement planning and sustainable finance.
Slide 13 – Generating synergies by removing duplications
 
where necessary
 
Credit Suisse’s riskier and more capital-intensive business
 
mix should have translated into a meaningfully
 
lower
cost/income ratio compared to UBS, but it didn’t.
 
Our cost/income ratios have been broadly similar
 
over the
years. That means Credit Suisse’s cost efficiency did not compensate
 
for lower capital efficiency, which led to
sub-par return on equity.
Therefore an important lever to return to sustainable levels
 
of profitability is to reduce costs, painful as they may
be.
Credit Suisse had already started this process when we merged.
 
A comprehensive restructuring plan was in
place, which we are continuing and accelerating where
 
possible.
In addition to that, we are removing duplication across all areas – technology, real estate, branch footprint and
staff.
But integrating our operations will require significant investment.
 
We expect to incur over one and a half billion
Swiss francs for this purpose, demonstrating
 
the size of the task at hand.
On staff reductions, we expect the vast majority to come
 
from natural attrition, retirements and internal
mobility. In total and as we said upfront, we expect around 3,000 forced redundancies in Switzerland, of which
1,000 directly related to the integration of our Swiss
 
businesses.
We are committed to minimizing the impact on
 
employees by treating them fairly, providing them with financial
support,
 
outplacement
 
services,
 
and
 
retraining
 
opportunities.
 
Our
 
aim
 
is
 
to
 
enable
 
those
 
affected
 
to
 
take
advantage of a
 
quite-healthy Swiss
 
job market, where
 
more open positions
 
in finance are
 
available than there
 
are
job seekers.
 
 
 
9
Slide 14 – Working with our clients to find solutions
 
in a challenging environment
Our clients are facing a challenging environment from an economic
 
and monetary perspective. Interest rates are
much higher than what our clients have become
 
used to for more than a decade. And adding
 
to that pain,
deposit funding has become scarcer for banks, which
 
means loans increasingly have to be financed with
 
more
expensive capital market funding.
 
At the same time, export sectors have to deal
 
with a strong Swiss franc and slow growth in our main export
markets. The manufacturing PMI is in contraction
 
territory for the last 18 months, which is longer
 
than during
the financial crisis.
As their partner and house bank, we are helping our
 
clients navigate the environment. We are doing this
despite higher liquidity and capital requirements which make
 
it more expensive to deploy balance sheet. We are
also facing higher funding costs from having inherited
 
Credit Suisse’s funding imbalance.
At the same time, we have to address Credit Suisse’s
 
over-reliance on lending and inadequate pricing in order
to remain a beacon of strength for our clients.
When we merged, Credit Suisse had initiated substantial
 
balance sheet reductions. Lending exposure was being
reduced fast, especially in the Real Estate space. With
 
the added strength of UBS, we can address excessive
capital intensity in a much smarter and more holistic
 
way. We can afford
 
to take a long-term perspective. This
provides clients with more time and flexibility while we work
 
towards sustainable profitability levels.
Our offer to clients is to broaden our relationship where needed. UBS’s
 
strength is in our holistic approach to
client relationships. And this is part of our DNA and
 
valued by clients because they know
 
they can come to UBS
for all of their banking needs.
Where a broader relationship is not a viable option, we have to
 
find a solution that is best for our client and
 
for
the firm – always with the aim to keep the client.
 
This can include higher prices to compensate
 
for the risks
taken by UBS in the form of lending.
It’s important to highlight that we have always
 
been very disciplined when it comes to
 
balance sheet
deployment at UBS. Regular reviews of economic profitability
 
across our client relationships – new and existing
– were always part of that discipline.
Having these types of client conversations is never easy, but from
 
my experience, the vast majority of our clients
understand the rationale.
 
Slide 15 – Our universal bank in Switzerland will
 
remain a key pillar of the Group’s strategy
Going back
 
to our
 
universal bank
 
comprising all
 
business areas
 
and clients
 
in Switzerland,
 
our commitment to
our home market is stronger than ever.
Underpinning this
 
commitment, we
 
aim to
 
maintain our
 
loan book
 
in Switzerland
 
at around
 
350 billion
 
Swiss
francs.
We want to be the partner of choice for customers
 
and to support them on all financial matters.
And we will remain a key pillar of the Swiss financial
 
center and the Swiss economy overall.
With that, let’s move to Q&A.
10
Fireside Q&A
 
with Máté
 
Nemes, UBS
 
European banking
 
analyst, and
 
Sabine Keller-
Busse, President Switzerland
 
and Personal & Corporate
 
Banking
Máté Nemes
Good morning from my side as well. My
 
name is Máté Nemes, I’m the Swiss banking
 
analyst at UBS. Sabine,
thank you for the presentation, very comprehensive. There are a few topics
 
I wanted to discuss a bit more in
detail with you. I think it’s clear that you’ve
 
accomplished a lot over a short period
 
of time. How are you feeling
about the Group, and specifically about P&C today?
 
What are the key areas that keep you busy?
Sabine Keller-Busse
Well, first of all, I think the integration as we have
 
progressed today is at the point where we can all be very
satisfied, having achieved all the milestones
 
we have set ourselves. So, since the decision
 
to really integrate the
Swiss business, we have moved diligently, focused, determined, and as I mentioned,
 
we have been able to
really achieve the significantly important milestone
 
of combining the two legal entities, by merging
 
the two
Swiss banks. And that was important because
 
it has given, for the employees now, really, another step change
– we are operating as one bank, you have all the employees
 
of Credit Suisse we could really welcome under the
UBS roof, working together. Having said that, we are still operating two product lines, so you have
 
UBS clients
on UBS products and IT platforms, Credit Suisse clients at
 
the IT platform. So that is definitely something that
will keep us busy going forward, ensuring we are preparing for
 
that migration that is going to happen next
year.
Keeping busy, I would say,
 
obviously keeping close to clients is keeping
 
us very busy. Competition is very strong
in Switzerland and for us it’s important to really stay
 
close to the clients, make sure that all banking
 
services
that clients need, because while we are integrating, all
 
the needs are remaining. So that, we are really staying
close, being able to fulfil all these services,
 
and making sure that all clients get that commitment
 
delivered every
day. And as I said, so far we have done very, very well, we have been able to stabilize the client franchise, and
we’ve even been able to attract 30 billion
 
net new deposits since the acquisition.
 
We have been able to even
keep the vast majority of clients, client assets
 
of those pockets where advisors have left. So a
 
lot of that keeps
us busy, and then something which keeps us always busy, but I think more than in the past as well, is what’s
happening on the technology front. So we see GenAI,
 
we see innovation moving, and they’re not waiting.
 
So
here we are already very busy and focused in really making sure we are staying at
 
the technological forefront,
embedding AI solutions in client services, in
 
supporting our client advisors. So it’s
 
quite, quite a lot.
Máté Nemes
It sounds so. So it is clear, I think, that tremendous effort has been going into the integration.
 
You’ve achieved
a lot, be it staff retention, be it expanded offering, be it organizational
 
alignment. What do you see as the
biggest challenges today?
Sabine Keller-Busse
I would say one of the clearly biggest challenges
 
is something you haven’t done very often, which
 
is migrating a
huge, huge client franchise from one platform to
 
the other. So, I think this is something we are very focused on
in preparing. I get a lot of support because we have
 
so many experts in the firm, so Mike
 
Dargan on his tech
department, Michelle Bereaux leading the integration.
 
So we are all working collectively and ensuring that
 
this,
we can really master that challenge and we are well prepared when we go into
 
the next year.
11
Then I would say another challenge is, I’ve mentioned
 
that we’re now really, I would say,
 
offering even more to
our clients, that we are very committed, and our clients
 
feel it. So we have always been clear to the
commitment, but nevertheless there is something uncontrollable
 
out there in the public, which is always
questioning what we are doing, and if we are doing the right
 
thing. And I think it is important, and
 
that is one
of the reasons I have used this conference as well, to really make sure that it’s
 
very clear that everybody
understands our commitment to Switzerland,
 
to the Swiss economy, but more importantly to all our clients.
And to really make sure everybody understands we are holding
 
that commitment, so we are putting money
where our mouth is, so to speak, by committing this
 
350 billion of credit to our clients in Switzerland. Which
we have, I would say, the first time we are getting out with these numbers, but to me it’s
 
important to, I would
say, to engage in that debate, and really make crystal clear that we are standing up and want to play
 
this role in
Switzerland, it’s important to us.
Máté Nemes
That’s very clear, thank you. I wanted to switch gears a little bit and talk about, perhaps,
 
to another major
topic, which is an exogenous driver rather than
 
UBS-specific, and that is interest rates. The Swiss National
 
Bank
has been leading the charge globally in terms
 
of reducing, normalizing policy rates. I wanted
 
to ask you about
the impact of lower rates on the Swiss business.
 
How do you see that going forward?
Sabine Keller-Busse
Well, there are different angles if you look at it. So one angle obviously, if rates are lowered, usually this fuels a
bit the economy, and helps the economy, because lending is better available, and at the same point in time,
you can see a lot more activity on the investment product side.
 
And that benefits everybody because being
 
a
bank in a, I would say, economically,
 
thriving economy is helping.
But obviously as a bank we see it on our net
 
interest income line as well. So we’ve already given guidance
 
that
on a quarterly comparison to the second quarter, for the third quarter we will see a
 
low single-digit decline,
which is primarily driven by the second rate cut
 
happening in June that the SNB did,
 
the 25 bps, they went
down. And then we’ve provided some guidance on
 
comparing last year’s fourth quarter on annualized,
 
so for
’24 we would expect high single-digit impact,
 
and that means that we need to offset that
 
to the extent possible
through generating other income lines.
But having said that, here it’s beneficial to be part
 
of a broader Group, because if we are looking at the UBS as
a Group, and we are part of that Group obviously, we have a very diversified business mix. So if interest rates
even moving down, we have other parts of
 
the bank which very much benefit. So in a
 
way we have a built-in
hedge being part of the Group.
Máté Nemes
Thank you, that makes a lot of sense.
 
I wanted to touch on another topic, and that
 
is, the risk environment. I
think Switzerland, rather uniquely in a global
 
context, avoided a meaningful, really high spike
 
in inflation, and
we have seen a certain benefit from the Swiss franc.
 
And now we are approaching a point where perhaps the
disadvantages are starting to outweigh the benefits.
 
I was wondering if you could talk a little
 
bit about what
you are seeing in the portfolio, how the current environment is
 
impacting the business.
Sabine Keller-Busse
I think looking at the Swiss franc, here honestly the
 
strength of the Swiss franc I’m less worried. And as
 
we
were talking about interest rates, perhaps that pressure on the Swiss franc,
 
that upward pressure gets a bit
tempered. But looking back, how Swiss corporates have
 
done over the past periods when the Swiss
 
franc was
already very, very high, or very,
 
very strong, I think there is a high resilience. And I would say to the
 
broader
large corporates space, they have learned
 
to deal with this, they have a trained muscle
 
on that end.
12
What we are seeing more, and this from seeing we’re now having the combined
 
portfolio, so we will see
obviously some idiosyncratic situations in a
 
larger client population on credit losses.
 
But overall, looking into the
macroeconomics and seeing what’s happening, for
 
us relevant export markets – I was mentioning the
manufacturing purchase index earlier on, which is an
 
all-time low with growth projections – so that is
something obviously, for certain industries within the Swiss market, that is something
 
that needs to be well
managed and we need to be very well aware of.
 
So overall, I would say we will remain on an elevated
 
level, as
we have seen now, but in a way a normalized form going forward.
Máté Nemes
Excellent, so both hands on the wheel. And on that
 
note, Sabine, I wanted to thank you very much
 
for your
presentation and the insightful discussion. It’s
 
a pleasure to have you here in Wolfsberg.
And those of you in the room, thank you for joining,
 
and watching the webcast, thank you for
 
watching.
Sabine Keller-Busse
Thank you. Thank you, Máté.
 
13
Cautionary statement
 
regarding
 
forward-looking statements
 
|
 
This document
contains statements
 
that constitute
 
“forward-looking statements,”
including but not limited to
 
management’s outlook for UBS’s
 
financial performance, statements
 
relating to the anticipated
 
effect of transactions and strategic
initiatives on UBS’s
 
business and future
 
development and goals
 
or intentions to
 
achieve climate, sustainability
 
and other social objectives.
 
While these forward-
looking statements
 
represent UBS’s
 
judgments, expectations and
 
objectives concerning the
 
matters described,
 
a number
 
of risks,
 
uncertainties and
 
other
important factors could cause actual developments and results to differ materially from UBS’s expectations. In particular, terrorist activity and conflicts in the
Middle East, as well as the continuing
 
Russia–Ukraine war, may have significant impacts on
 
global markets, exacerbate global
 
inflationary pressures, and slow
global growth.
 
In addition,
 
the ongoing
 
conflicts may
 
continue to
 
cause significant
 
population displacement, and
 
lead to
 
shortages of
 
vital commodities,
including energy
 
shortages and
 
food insecurity
 
outside the
 
areas immediately
 
involved in
 
armed conflict. Governmental
 
responses to
 
the armed
 
conflicts,
including, with respect
 
to the Russia–Ukraine war,
 
coordinated successive sets
 
of sanctions on
 
Russia and Belarus,
 
and Russian and
 
Belarusian entities and
nationals, and the uncertainty as to
 
whether the ongoing conflicts will widen and
 
intensify, may continue
 
to have significant adverse effects
 
on the market
and macroeconomic conditions, including in ways
 
that cannot be anticipated. UBS’s
 
acquisition of the Credit Suisse Group has materially
 
changed its outlook
and strategic direction
 
and introduced new
 
operational challenges. The
 
integration of the
 
Credit Suisse
 
entities into the
 
UBS structure
 
is expected to
 
take
between three and five
 
years and presents significant risks,
 
including the risks that UBS
 
Group AG may be
 
unable to achieve the
 
cost reductions and other
benefits contemplated by the
 
transaction. This creates significantly
 
greater uncertainty about forward-looking
 
statements. Other factors that
 
may affect UBS’s
performance and ability to achieve its plans, outlook and other objectives also include, but are not limited to: (i) the degree to which UBS is successful in the
execution of
 
its strategic
 
plans, including its
 
cost reduction
 
and efficiency
 
initiatives and
 
its ability
 
to manage
 
its levels
 
of risk-weighted assets
 
(RWA) and
leverage ratio denominator (LRD),
 
liquidity coverage ratio and
 
other financial resources,
 
including changes in RWA
 
assets and liabilities arising
 
from higher
market volatility and the size of the combined Group; (ii) the degree to which UBS is successful
 
in implementing changes to its businesses to meet changing
market, regulatory and other conditions,
 
including as a result of the
 
acquisition of the Credit Suisse
 
Group; (iii) increased inflation and interest
 
rate volatility in
major markets; (iv) developments in the macroeconomic climate
 
and in the markets in which UBS operates or to which it is exposed, including
 
movements in
securities prices
 
or liquidity,
 
credit spreads,
 
currency exchange
 
rates, deterioration or
 
slow recovery
 
in residential
 
and commercial
 
real estate
 
markets, the
effects of economic
 
conditions, including
 
elevated inflationary
 
pressures, market developments,
 
increasing geopolitical tensions,
 
and changes to
 
national trade
policies on the financial position
 
or creditworthiness of UBS’s clients
 
and counterparties, as well
 
as on client sentiment and levels
 
of activity; (v) changes in the
availability of capital and funding, including
 
any adverse changes in UBS’s credit spreads and
 
credit ratings of UBS, Credit Suisse, sovereign issuers,
 
structured
credit products or credit-related exposures, as well as
 
availability and cost of funding to meet requirements for debt eligible for total loss-absorbing capacity
(TLAC), in particular in light
 
of the acquisition of the Credit
 
Suisse Group; (vi) changes in
 
central bank policies or the
 
implementation of financial legislation
and regulation in Switzerland, the
 
US, the UK, the EU
 
and other financial centers
 
that have imposed, or resulted
 
in, or may do so in
 
the future, more stringent
or entity-specific capital, TLAC,
 
leverage ratio, net stable
 
funding ratio, liquidity and
 
funding requirements, heightened operational resilience
 
requirements,
incremental tax requirements, additional
 
levies, limitations on
 
permitted activities, constraints
 
on remuneration, constraints
 
on transfers of capital
 
and liquidity
and sharing of operational costs across the Group or other
 
measures, and the effect these will or would have on UBS’s business
 
activities; (vii) UBS’s ability to
successfully implement resolvability and
 
related regulatory requirements
 
and the potential
 
need to make
 
further changes to
 
the legal structure
 
or booking
model of UBS
 
in response to
 
legal and regulatory requirements
 
and any additional requirements
 
due to its
 
acquisition of the Credit
 
Suisse Group, or
 
other
developments; (viii) UBS’s ability to maintain and improve its systems
 
and controls for complying with sanctions in a timely manner and for
 
the detection and
prevention of money laundering to meet evolving
 
regulatory requirements and expectations, in particular in current
 
geopolitical turmoil; (ix) the uncertainty
arising from domestic stresses in certain major economies; (x) changes in
 
UBS’s competitive position, including whether differences in regulatory capital and
other requirements among the
 
major financial centers adversely affect
 
UBS’s ability to compete in
 
certain lines of business; (xi)
 
changes in the standards
 
of
conduct applicable to its businesses that may result from new regulations or new enforcement of existing standards, including measures to impose new and
enhanced duties when interacting
 
with customers and in
 
the execution and handling
 
of customer transactions;
 
(xii) the liability to which
 
UBS may be exposed,
or
 
possible constraints
 
or
 
sanctions that
 
regulatory authorities
 
might impose
 
on UBS,
 
due to
 
litigation, contractual
 
claims and
 
regulatory investigations,
including the potential for disqualification from certain businesses,
 
potentially large fines or monetary penalties, or
 
the loss of licenses or privileges as a result
of regulatory or other governmental sanctions, as well as the effect that litigation, regulatory and similar matters have on the operational risk component of
its RWA, including as a
 
result of its acquisition
 
of the Credit Suisse
 
Group, as well as the
 
amount of capital available
 
for return to shareholders;
 
(xiii) the effects
on UBS’s business, in
 
particular cross-border banking, of sanctions,
 
tax or regulatory developments and
 
of possible changes in
 
UBS’s policies and practices;
(xiv) UBS’s ability
 
to retain and
 
attract the
 
employees necessary
 
to generate revenues
 
and to manage,
 
support and control
 
its businesses,
 
which may be
 
affected
by competitive factors; (xv) changes in accounting
 
or tax standards or policies, and determinations or interpretations
 
affecting the recognition of gain or loss,
the valuation of goodwill, the recognition of deferred tax assets and other matters; (xvi) UBS’s ability to implement new technologies and business methods,
including digital services and technologies, and ability
 
to successfully compete with both existing and new financial
 
service providers, some of which may not
be
 
regulated to
 
the same
 
extent; (xvii)
 
limitations on
 
the effectiveness
 
of
 
UBS’s internal
 
processes for
 
risk management,
 
risk
 
control, measurement
 
and
modeling, and of financial
 
models generally; (xviii) the
 
occurrence of operational failures,
 
such as fraud,
 
misconduct, unauthorized trading, financial crime,
cyberattacks, data leakage and systems failures,
 
the risk of which
 
is increased with cyberattack threats
 
from both nation states and
 
non-nation-state actors
targeting financial institutions; (xix) restrictions on the ability of UBS Group AG and UBS AG
 
to make payments or distributions, including due to restrictions
on the ability of its subsidiaries to make
 
loans or distributions, directly or indirectly, or, in the case of financial difficulties, due to the exercise by FINMA
 
or the
regulators of UBS’s operations in
 
other countries of their
 
broad statutory powers in
 
relation to protective measures, restructuring
 
and liquidation proceedings;
(xx) the degree to which changes
 
in regulation, capital or legal
 
structure, financial results or other factors
 
may affect UBS’s ability to maintain
 
its stated capital
return objective; (xxi) uncertainty
 
over the scope of actions
 
that may be required by UBS,
 
governments and others
 
for UBS to achieve goals
 
relating to climate,
environmental
 
and
 
social
 
matters,
 
as
 
well
 
as
 
the
 
evolving
 
nature
 
of
 
underlying
 
science
 
and
 
industry
 
and
 
the
 
possibility
 
of
 
conflict
 
between
 
different
governmental standards
 
and regulatory regimes;
 
(xxii) the ability
 
of UBS to
 
access capital markets;
 
(xxiii) the ability
 
of UBS to
 
successfully recover from
 
a disaster
or other business continuity problem due
 
to a hurricane, flood, earthquake, terrorist
 
attack, war,
 
conflict (e.g., the Russia–Ukraine war), pandemic, security
breach, cyberattack, power loss, telecommunications failure or other natural or man-made event, including the ability to function
 
remotely during long-term
disruptions such as the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic; (xxiv)
 
the level of success in the
 
absorption of Credit Suisse, in the
 
integration of the two groups
and their businesses, and
 
in the execution of
 
the planned strategy regarding
 
cost reduction and divestment
 
of any non-core assets,
 
the existing assets and
liabilities of Credit Suisse, the level of
 
resulting impairments and write-downs, the effect of the consummation of the
 
integration on the operational results,
share price and credit rating of UBS – delays, difficulties, or failure in closing
 
the transaction may cause market disruption
 
and challenges for UBS to maintain
business, contractual
 
and operational
 
relationships; and
 
(xxv) the
 
effect that
 
these or
 
other factors
 
or unanticipated
 
events, including
 
media reports
 
and
speculations, may have on
 
its reputation and
 
the additional consequences that this
 
may have on
 
its business and performance. The
 
sequence in which the
factors above are presented is not indicative of their likelihood of occurrence or the potential magnitude of their consequences. UBS’s business and financial
performance could be affected by other factors identified in its past and future filings and reports, including those filed with the US Securities and Exchange
Commission (the SEC).
 
More detailed information
 
about those
 
factors is
 
set forth
 
in documents furnished
 
by UBS
 
and filings
 
made by
 
UBS with
 
the SEC,
including the UBS
 
Group AG and
 
UBS AG Annual
 
Reports on Form
 
20- F for
 
the year ended
 
31 December 2023.
 
UBS is not
 
under any obligation
 
to (and
expressly disclaims any obligation to) update or
 
alter its forward-looking statements, whether as
 
a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
 
 
 
 
 
SIGNATURES
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the
 
registrant has duly caused this
report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized.
UBS Group AG
 
By: _/s/ David Kelly______________
Name:
 
David Kelly
Title:
 
Managing Director
By: _/s/ Ella Campi_______________
Name:
 
Ella Campi
Title:
 
Executive Director
 
UBS AG
By: _/s/ David Kelly______________
Name:
 
David Kelly
 
Title:
 
Managing Director
By: _/s/ Ella Campi_______________
Name:
 
Ella Campi
Title:
 
Executive Director
Date:
 
September 11, 2024