(Bloomberg) UBS Group AG is starting a digital wealth manager in the U.S. to grab a bigger share of the country’s market for retirement savings and stock options, in a move that will pit it against the top Wall Street banks on their home turf. The new digital bank will service affluent customers with between $250,000 and $2 million in assets, a group UBS hasn’t previously targeted in a meaningful way, Chief Financial Officer Kirt Gardner said Tuesday. While the bank plans to build the business organically, it’s open to acquisitions to accelerate the strategy, according to Chief Executive Officer Ralph Hamers. “Organic growth is basically the default,” Hamers said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. But “if there is an inorganic option that could accelerate us into that direction, we would certainly consider it.” The new business, scheduled to start some time next year, would be almost entirely digital but customers would still have the option to call on a human adviser,
(Bloomberg) UBS Group AG Chief Executive Officer Ralph Hamers pushed back against broadening concerns over the growth outlook in China, despite recent turbulence around China Evergrande Group and worries that government policy will hurt the wealthy. “I’m strategically full bull on China, absolutely,” Hamers said in an interview with Bloomberg TV’s Manus Cranny on Tuesday. “We plan to invest more.” The bank experienced $1.8 billion in asset outflows for its wealth business in Asia Pacific in the third quarter and experienced an overall drop in the assets it manages of 5%, due to negative market performance and foreign currency effects, totaling $3.9 billion. Analysts from Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc are among those that have warned that China faces a sharper growth slowdown than most expect, as the push to cut reliance on real estate combines with power shortages and the pandemic. Those factors plus President Xi Jinping’s push to curb wealth excesses may stok
(Bloomberg) UBS Group AG is starting a digital wealth manager in the U.S. to grab a bigger share of the country’s market for retirement savings and stock options, in a move that will pit it against the top Wall Street banks on their home turf. The new digital bank will service affluent customers with between $250,000 and $2 million in assets, a group UBS hasn’t previously targeted in a meaningful way, Chief Financial Officer Kirt Gardner said Tuesday. While the bank plans to build the business organically, it’s open to acquisitions to accelerate the strategy, according to Chief Executive Officer Ralph Hamers. “Organic growth is basically the default,” Hamers said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. But “if there is an inorganic option that could accelerate us into that direction, we would certainly consider it.” The new business, scheduled to start some time next year, would be almost entirely digital but customers would still have the option to call on a human adviser,
UBS: 2Q21 Net Profit of USD 2.0bn, 19.3% return on CET1 Capital (Ad Hoc Announcement Pursuant to Article 53 of the SIX Exchange Regulation Listing Rules)
Ralph Hamers Quote (Graphic: UBS Group AG)
UBS (NYSE:UBS) (SWX:UBSN):
UBS s 2Q21 results materials are available at
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Our clients continued to put their trust in us as was evident from the continued momentum in flows and volume growth. Together with favorable market conditions and investor sentiment, this led to growth across the firm. Invested assets in GWM and AM of USD 4.4trn rose 4% sequentially, GWM saw USD 25bn of net new fee-generating assets with inflows in all regions, and there was USD 8bn in net new lending across GWM and Personal Banking, while strong client activity drove YoY increases of 16% in transaction-based income in GWM and 68% in Global Banking income.