Swiss banking giant UBS on Tuesday posted $770 million in fourth-quarter net profit, launching a $1 billion share buyback program in the first half of 2025.
The net profit figure compares with a mean forecast of $886.4 million in a LSEG poll of analysts and with a $483 million estimate in a company-provided estimate.
After weathering the storm of a turbulent government-backed tie-up with fallen domestic rival Credit Suisse in 2023, UBS hoped to achieve $7.5 billion out of a total of $13 billion in cost savings by the end of last year, with CEO Sergio Ermotti signaling in a Bloomberg interview last month that redundancies were “inevitable” as part of the process — even as the group aims to rely on voluntary departures.
The Swiss belt tightening adds to a picture of broader expense discipline and restructuring across Europe’s banking sectors, as lenders exit a period of high interest rates and claw profitability to keep pace with U.S. peers. On Monday, fellow Swiss bank Julius Baer revealed an additional target of 110 million of Swiss francs ($120 million) in gross savings, while HSBC last week said it is preparing to wind down its M&A and equity capital markets operations in Europe, the U.K. and the U.S.
Armed with a balance sheet that topped $1.7 trillion in 2023 — roughly double Switzerland’s anticipated economic output last year — UBS has been battling vocal concerns at home that its scale has breached the Swiss government’s comfort, depriving the lender of peers that can absorb it and facing Bern with a steep nationalization price tag, in the event of its failure.
The Swiss economy has already been backed into a fragile corner by depressed annual inflation — of just 0.6% in December — and a punitively strong Swiss franc, which only gained further ground on Monday as the global tumult resulting from U.S. tariffs pushed jittery investors toward the safe-haven asset.
This breaking news story is being updated.