UBS’ quarterly profit more than doubled on the year amid big spending cuts. The Swiss bank set out two-year targets and disclosed the sale of a funds business.
The Zurich-based bank’s fourth-quarter net profit rose to $722 million, from $315 million year-ago, amid a nearly six percent cut in spending, it said on Tuesday. It lifted its dividend to 0.73 Swiss francs per share, after paying out 0.70 francs in 2018.
We are balancing investments to take advantage of opportunities for growth across our businesses and regions while managing for efficiency,» the Swiss bank said. It recently unveiled a major restructuring of its flagship private bank, which is the centerpiece of CEO Sergio Ermotti’s 2012 new strategy for the bank.
The private bank’s newly-disclosed goal is to hike profit before taxes by at least ten percent annually. As a whole, UBS’ year was more mixed: net profit dropped nearly five percent to $4.3 billion. The wealth manager couldn’t cut annual spending quickly enough to match a tumble in revenue.
UBS is disposing of a majority of Fondcenter, a money management platform for its institutional clients, to Clearstream for $600 million, it said in a separate statement. The move will bolster UBS’ hardest type of capital, the bank said.
