Swiss bank UBS swings to loss
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ZURICH, Switzerland (CNN) -- UBS, Switzerland's biggest bank, posted a fourth-quarter loss on Tuesday and warned it saw no pick up in its financial position as global political uncertainties continued to plague stock markets.
The Zurich-based bank swung to a loss of 101 million Swiss francs ($73.7 million) as it spent money on re-branding its businesses and scrapping the Paine Webber and Warburg names.
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a loss of 65 million Swiss francs, while in the same period a year ago it made a profit of 1.1 billion Swiss francs.
UBS bought New York-based broker Paine Webber for $11.8 billion to plug a hole in its plan to manage money for the wealthy. The total price tag included about $770 million for the Paine Webber name, which was founded by William Paine and Wallace Webber in 1879.
The world's biggest wealth manager wrote off 953 million francs to cover the cost of eliminating the Paine Webber name.
"We do not expect to see an immediate pick up in our financial performance as depressed asset levels, low levels of investor activity and possible deterioration of the credit environment weigh on our revenues,'' the bank said. "Any recovery in the latter part of this year remains simply unpredictable.''
For the year, UBS made a net profit of 3.5 billion Swiss francs, down 4.97 billion francs.
But rival Credit Suisse is expected to post a loss of 3.4 billion Swiss francs when it reports on February 25. (Full story)
