UBS chairman: ‘Huge amount of risk’ in integrating Credit Suisse
UBS chairman warns of ‘huge risk’ of Credit Suisse integration after £2.6bn bailout
UBS’s chairman has warned that the bank faces “huge risk” if it tries to integrate its collapsed rival Credit Suisse after a bailout.
Colm Kelleher told the Swiss lender’s annual general meeting in Basel that while the £2.6bn rescue was a ‘milestone’, it was ‘by no means an easy deal’.
UBS chairman Colm Kelleher
As shareholders lined up to raise concerns, he said the integration could take up to four years.
UBS Vice Chairman Lukas Gaehwiler said unifying operations would be “a huge task.”
The deal was cobbled together two weeks ago in a “shotgun wedding” orchestrated by the Swiss government and other officials.
Vincent Kaufmann, CEO of the Ethos Foundation, which represents about three percent of UBS investors, was “concerned about this giant new bank” which will make UBS the world’s fourth largest lender with £4 trillion in assets.
He said the deal concentrated a “massive” amount of risk in the Swiss market into a single entity.
Other investors called on UBS to learn lessons from its collapsed rival to avoid the same fate.
“We need to radically change the culture of bonuses…otherwise we will wake up one day with UBS also in the dumps,” said Martin Schutz, a shareholder.