UBS

Overview

UBS Group AG (stylized simply as UBS) is a Swiss multinational investment bank and financial services firm founded and based in Switzerland, with headquarters in both Zurich and Basel. It holds a strong foothold in all major financial centres as the largest Swiss banking institution and the world's largest private bank. UBS manages the largest amount of private wealth in the world, counting approximately half of The World's Billionaires among its clients, with over US$7 trillion in assets as of December 2025 (AUM). Based on international deal flow and political influence, the firm is considered one of the "biggest, most powerful financial institutions in the world". UBS is also a leading market maker and one of the eight global 'bulge bracket' investment banks. Due to its large presence across the Americas, EMEA and Asia–Pacific markets, the Financial Stability Board considers it a global systemically important bank and UBS is widely considered to be the largest and most sophisticated "truly global investment bank" in the world, given its market-leading positions in every major financial centre globally. UBS investment bankers and private bankers are known for their strict bank–client confidentiality and culture of banking secrecy. Apart from private banking, UBS provides wealth management, asset management and investment banking services for private, corporate and institutional clients with international service. The bank also maintains numerous underground bank vaults, bunkers and storage facilities for gold bars around the Swiss Alps and internationally. UBS acquired rival Credit Suisse in an emergency rescue deal brokered by the Swiss government and its Central bank in 2023, following which UBS' AUM increased to over $5 trillion along with an increased balanced sheet of $1.6 trillion. In June 2017, its return on invested capital was 11.1%, followed by Goldman Sachs' 9.35%, and JPMorgan Chase's 9.456%. The company's capital strength, security protocols, and reputation for discretion have yielded a substantial market share in banking and a high level of brand loyalty. Alternatively, it receives routine criticism for facilitating tax noncompliance and off-shore financing. Partly due to its banking secrecy, it has also been at the centre of numerous tax avoidance investigations undertaken by U.S., French, German, Israeli and Belgian authorities. UBS operations in Switzerland and the United States were respectively ranked first and second on the 2018 Financial Secrecy Index. UBS is a primary dealer and Forex counterparty of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Corporate structure

UBS is a joint-stock company (Aktiengesellschaft), pursuant to Swiss laws. Its shares are listed at the SIX Swiss Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). As of December 2020, UBS is present in all major financial centres worldwide, such as New York, London, Zürich, Berlin, Sydney, and Singapore. UBS has offices in 50 countries, with about 30% of its approximately 73,000 employees working in the Americas, 30% in Switzerland, 19% in Europe (excluding Switzerland), the Middle East and Africa and 21% in the Asia Pacific region. The bank has a major presence in the United States. Its American headquarters for investment banking are located in New York City, and for private wealth management advisory in Weehawken, New Jersey. They have sales & trading, along with private wealth management offices in Stamford, Connecticut.

The company's global business groups provide services that entail: global wealth management, investment banking, asset management and personal & corporate banking. UBS is the leading provider of retail banking and commercial banking services in Switzerland, and they have been on top of the Swiss market since in 2009. Looking holistically, UBS' overall invested assets is $3.101 billion, shareholders' equity is $52.928 billion and market capitalization is $45.907 billion at the end of the year 2018. In November 2014, the shares in UBS Group AG were listed and started trading as a new holding company at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the SIX Swiss Exchange. Upon application and with effect as of 14 January 2015, the shares of UBS AG, a subsidiary of the UBS Group AG, were delisted from the NYSE. As of September 2019, the largest institutional shareholders are:

As of 31 December 2024, the geographical distribution of the shareholders presents itself as follows:

As of June 2018, UBS's corporate structure includes four divisions in total, namely:

Global Wealth Management Personal & Corporate Bank Asset Management Investment Bank Starting on 9 June 2003, all UBS business groups, including UBS Paine Webber and UBS Warburg, were rebranded under the UBS moniker following company's start of operations as a unified global entity.

Global Wealth Management

UBS's global wealth management advisory division offers high-net-worth individuals around the world a range of advisory and investment products and services. As of the end of 2016, UBS Wealth Management's invested assets totalled CHF 977billion. The whole companies assets under management (AUM) amounted to US$1,737.5 billion in 2015, representing a 1% decrease in AUM compared to the equivalent data of 2014. As of 2018, UBS manages the largest amount of private wealth in the world, counting approximately half of The World's Billionaires among its clients. More than 60% of total invested assets in UBS Wealth Management belong to individuals with a net worth of CHF 10 million or more. Of the remaining 40% of total invested assets, 30% of the total belong to individuals with net worth between CHF 1 million and CHF 10 million and the last 10% of total assets belong to individuals with a net worth of less than CHF 1 million. With the acquisition of Credit Suisse, total AUM rose to US$2,860 billion in 2024. This ranks UBS 7th globally and 1st outside the U.S. UBS offers brokerage services and products as well as asset management and other investment advisory and portfolio management products and services. Additionally, UBS provides a broad range of securities and savings products that are supported by the firm's underwriting and research activities as well as clients' orders management and execution and also clearing services for transactions originated by individual investors. The business is further divided geographically with separate businesses focused on the U.S. and other international markets. Two-thirds of the total invested assets come from Europe and Switzerland, with the final third coming mainly from the Asia-Pacific region.

With its headquarters in Switzerland, UBS Wealth Management is present in more than 40 countries with approximately 190 offices (100 of which are in Switzerland). As of the end of 2018, around 23,600 people worldwide were employed by Global Wealth Management. In Switzerland, UBS Swiss Bank provides a complete set of retail banking services that includes chequing, savings, credit cards, and mortgage products for individuals. They offer cash management and commercial banking services for small businesses and corporate clients as well. UBS global wealth management advisory operations in the Americas consists of U.S. and Canadian wealth management businesses, as well as international business booked in the U.S. UBS Wealth Management in the U.S. is an outgrowth of the former Paine Webber brokerage business. The business was initially renamed UBS Paine Webber in March 2001, after it was acquired by UBS. The division offers wealth management advice for ultra-high net worth and high net worth clients. UBS was named "Best Bank for Wealth Management in North America" at the Euromoney Awards for Excellence 2017. In January 2026, it was announced that UBS began leasing 26,000 square feet of office space in Dallas, Texas to launch its UBS Wealth Advice Center hub. In 2026, UBS was charged for repeatedly laundering money through one of its US subsidiaries and fined $125 million by FinCEN. UBS's main competitors in this division are Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Charles Schwab.

Personal and Corporate Banking

UBS's Personal & Corporate Banking division delivers financial products and services to retail, corporate and institutional clients in Switzerland. It also provides stable and substantial profits for the Group and revenue opportunities for businesses within the bank. UBS maintains a leading position in the retail and corporate loan market in Switzerland; in fact, it serves one in three pension funds, more than 85% of the 1,000 largest Swiss corporations and 85% of banks that resides within the nation. In 2015, 2017 and 2018, the international financial magazine Euromoney named UBS "Best Domestic Cash Manager Switzerland". As of 31 December 2018, its lending portfolio reached US$131 billion (~$165 billion in 2025). The products that this UBS division offers range from cash accounts, payments, savings and retirement plans to investment fund products, residential mortgages and advisory services. This business division constitutes a central building block of UBS's universal bank delivery model in Switzerland and it supports other divisions, such as Investment Bank, by referring clients to them and by assisting them to build their wealth to a level at which they can be transferred to UBS Wealth Management. The retail and corporate distribution network comprises not only 279 branches in Switzerland, but 1,250 teller machines and self-service terminals, as well as digital banking services, serving 2.5 million personal banking clients.

UBS Asset Management

UBS Asset Management offers equity, fixed income, currency, hedge fund, global real estate, infrastructure and private equity investment capabilities that can also be combined in multi-asset strategies. The 1998 UBS-SBC merger and subsequent restructuring resulted in the combination of three major asset management operations: UBS Asset Management, Phillips & Drew (owned by Union Bank of Switzerland), and Brinson Partners (owned by SBC). The investment teams were merged in 2000 and in 2002 the brands were consolidated to become UBS Global Asset Management. At the end of December 2018, UBS Asset Management was responsible for US$781 billion of invested assets and the assets under administration were US$413 billion. With around 2,300 employees in 23 countries, UBS Asset Management is the largest mutual fund manager in Switzerland, a leading fund house in Europe, and one of the largest hedge funds and real estate investment managers in the world. It has main offices in Chicago, Hong Kong, London, New York City, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, and Zürich. With the aim to generate systematic products and services for clients, in 2017, UBS integrated Equities, Fixed Income and Solutions capabilities and hedge funds business within a new area named Investments. UBS also formed a new area of business named Real Estate and Private Markets by combining their Global Real Estate and Infrastructure and Private Equity businesses. In February 2017, UBS Group AG and the Northern Trust Corporation, an American international financial services company, announced an agreement for the acquisition of UBS Asset Management's fund administration servicing units in Luxembourg and Switzerland. This acquisition will facilitate the expansion of the Northern Trust Corporation into these two countries, turning the American company into the major fund administrator in the local markets and into one of the ten global leaders in the sector. At the end of the transaction, completed in October 2017, the American company will administrate a total of CHF 420 billion in assets. UBS Asset Management will continue anyway to offer Management Company, White Labelling and Representative Services to its clients. Ulrich Körner, president of the UBS Asset Management, affirms that the continuous transformation of its platform is due to a major efficiency, effectiveness and geographical dislocation of the services offered by the bank. UBS's main competitors in this division are BlackRock, Vanguard Group, State Street Global Advisers (SSGA), Fidelity Investments and Allianz Asset Management (AAM). In April 2025, UBS Asset Management, which oversees $1.8 trillion in assets, has removed restrictions on some of its sustainability funds investing in manufacturers of conventional weapons. This marks a shift in European asset management, as investors respond to rising geopolitical tensions and a regional push for rearmament. UBS still maintains bans on controversial weapons like cluster munitions and biological arms but gave no explanation for lifting the conventional weapons ban. The trend reflects growing investor enthusiasm to support Europe's defense buildup, particularly amidst pressure from U.S. government and rising military spending across the continent. As a result, defense stocks have surged in value.

UBS Investment Bank

UBS Investment Bank provides services covering securities, other financial products, and research in equities, rates, credit, foreign exchange, precious metals and derivatives. As of the end of December 2018, the personnel employed at UBS Investment Bank totalled 5,205, present in 33 countries (with principal offices in Chicago, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, New York, Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo and Zurich). This business division also advises and provides access to capital markets for corporate and institutional clients, governments, financial intermediaries, alternative asset managers, and private investors. UBS Investment Bank was formerly known as UBS Warburg and as Warburg Dillon Read, before the merger of the Union Bank of Switzerland and the Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC). Within the UBS Investment Bank division, the Investment Banking Department (IBD) provides a range of advisory and underwriting services including mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, equity offerings, investment grade and high yield debt offerings, leveraged finance and leveraged loan structuring, and the private placement of equity, debt, and derivatives. The Sales & Trading division comprises equities (brokering, dealing, market making and engaging in proprietary trading in equities, equity-related products, equity derivatives, and structured products) and FX, Rates and Credit (FRC) (brokering, dealing, market making and engaging in proprietary trading in interest rate products, credit products, mortgage-backed securities, leveraged loans, investment grade and high-yield debt, currencies, structured products, and derivative products). Following an expansion in 2002, the trading floor covers 9,600-square-metre (103,000 sq ft) with 12-metre (40 ft) arched ceilings. Over US$1 trillion in assets are traded here every trading day. In June 2011, it was announced that UBS was considering moving its North American headquarters back to New York City, and that the bank was looking for office spaces in Midtown and in the rebuilt World Trade Center. UBS's main competitors in this division are fellow members of the Bulge Bracket, particularly Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America. The American division also offers its own credit card not sponsored by another bank unlike many of its competitors.

Competition

On a global scale, UBS competes with the largest global investment banks, particularly within the Bulge Bracket. and until acquiring Credit Suisse in 2023 was regularly compared against it. According to a 2018 study published by Coalition Research Institute, UBS was among the top 10 of the world's investment banks.

In Switzerland: UBS competes with a number of cantonal banks, such as Zürcher Kantonalbank, Banque cantonale vaudoise and other cantonal banks, as well as Raiffeisen, PostFinance, and the Migros Bank. In Europe: UBS competes with several larger banks, such as Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Crédit agricole, BNP Paribas, Natixis, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and UniCredit. In the United States: UBS competes with the largest American banks, such as Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley.

History

UBS was founded in 1862 as the Bank in Winterthur. The Bank in Winterthur came with the movement that founded multiple Suisse Grossbanken (Swiss big banks) that occurred in the latter sector of the 19th century. The name of the bank was derived from the town of Winterthur, which served as Switzerland's industrial hub in the 19th century. By 1854, six private bankers in Basel founded the Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC) to cater to the increasing credit needs of Swiss railroad and manufacturing companies. It formed a private banking syndicate that expanded, aided by Switzerland's international neutrality. In 1912, the Bank of Winterthur merged with Toggenburger Bank to form the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) and grew rapidly after the Banking Law of 1934 codified Swiss banking secrecy. Following decades of market competition between Union Bank of Switzerland and the Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC), the two merged in 1998 to create a single company known solely as "UBS". The agreement to merge had been made the previous year at a meeting of the Institut International d’Etudes Bancaires, a secretive club for European banking CEOs. When Union Bank and SBC merged, officials originally wanted to name the merged company the "United Bank of Switzerland," but opted to call it simply UBS because of a name clash with the separate Swiss company United Bank Switzerland – a part of the United Bank Limited's Swiss subsidiary. UBS is no longer an acronym for Union Bank of Switzerland, but is the company's brand, just like other prominent brands which used to be an abbreviation of a company name. The name 'UBS' came from one of its predecessor firms – the Union Bank of Switzerland. In fact, that was one of the more than 370 financial firms that have, since 1862, become part of today's UBS. Its logo of three keys was carried over from SBC, and stands for the company's values of confidence, security, and discretion. During the 2008 financial crisis, UBS managed heavy losses with an asset relief recovery programme. In 2011, the company was hit by the 2011 rogue trader scandal resulting in a US$2 billion trading loss. In 2012, the bank reoriented itself around wealth management advisory services and limited its sell side operations.

Swiss Bank Corporation

UBS' earliest corporate ancestor was formed in 1854, when six private banking firms in Basel, Switzerland pooled their resources to form the Bankverein, a consortium that acted as an underwriting syndicate for its member banks. In 1871, the Bankverein coordinated with the German Frankfurter Bankverein to form the Basler Bankverein, a joint-stock company replacing the original Bankverein consortium. After the new bank started with an initial commitment of CHF 30 million and CHF 6 million of share capital, it soon experienced growing pains when heavy losses in Germany caused it to suspend its dividend until 1879. Following the years 1885 and 1886, when the bank merged with the Zürcher Bankverein and acquired the Basler Depositenbank and the Schweizerische Unionbank, it changed its name to Schweizerischer Bankverein. The English name of the bank was originally Swiss Bankverein, but was changed to Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC) in 1917. SBC subsequently experienced a period of growth, which was only interrupted by the onset of World War I, in which the bank lost investments in a number of large industrial companies. By the end of 1918, the bank had recovered and surpassed CHF 1 billion in total assets and grew to 2,000 employees by 1920. The impact of the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression was severe, particularly as the Swiss franc suffered major devaluation in 1936. The bank saw its assets fall from a 1929 peak of CHF 1.6 billion to its 1918 levels of CHF 1 billion by 1936. In 1937, SBC adopted its three-keys logo, designed by Warja Honegger-Lavater, symbolizing confidence, security, and discretion, which remains an integral part in the current-day logo of UBS. On the eve of World War II in 1939, SBC, like other Swiss banks, was the recipient of large influxes of foreign funds for safekeeping. Just prior to the outbreak of the war, SBC made the timely decision to open an office in New York City. The office, located in the Equitable Building, was able to begin operations a few weeks after the outbreak of the war and was intended as a safe place to store assets in the case of an invasion. During the war, the banks' traditional business fell off and the Swiss government became its largest client. In 1945, SBC acquired the Basler Handelsbank (Commercial Bank of Basel), which was one of the largest banks in Switzerland, but became insolvent by the end of the war. SBC remained among the Swiss government's leading underwriters of debt in the post-war years. SBC, which had entered the 1950s with 31 branch offices in Switzerland and three abroad, more than doubled its assets from the end of the war to CHF 4 billion by the end of the 1950s and doubled assets again in the mid-1960s, exceeding CHF 10 billion by 1965. In 1961, SBC acquired Banque Populaire Valaisanne, based in Sion, Switzerland, and the Banque Populaire de Sierre. The bank opened a full branch office in Tokyo in 1970.

In 1992, SBC acquired O'Connor & Associates, a Chicago-based options trading firm and the largest market maker in the financial options exchanges in the U.S. O'Connor was combined with SBC's money market, capital market, and currency market activities to form a globally integrated capital markets and treasury operation. In 1994, SBC acquired Brinson Partners, an asset management firm focused on providing access for U.S. institutions to global markets, for US$750 million. Following the acquisition, founder Gary P. Brinson ran SBC's asset management business and later when SBC merged with UBS was named chief investment officer of UBS Asset Management. The acquisition of S.G. Warburg & Co., a leading British investment banking firm, in 1995 for the price of US$1.4 billion (~$2.7 billion in 2025) signified a major push into investment banking. S.G. Warburg & Co. had established a reputation as a daring merchant bank that grew to be one of the most respected investment banks in London. However, a Warburg expansion into the U.S. had turned out flawed and costly, and talks in 1994 with Morgan Stanley about a merger had collapsed. SBC merged the firm with its own existing investment banking unit to create SBC Warburg. Two years later, in 1997, SBC paid US$600 million (~$1.12 billion in 2025) to acquire Dillon, Read & Co., a U.S. bulge bracket investment bank. Dillon, Read & Co., which traced its roots to the 1830s, was among the powerhouse firms on Wall Street in the 1920s and 1930s, and by the 1990s had a particularly strong mergers and acquisitions advisory group. Dillon Read had been in negotiations to sell itself to ING, which owned 25% of the firm already, but Dillon Read partners balked at ING's integration plans. After its acquisition by SBC, Dillon Read was merged with SBC-Warburg to create SBC-Warburg Dillon Read. Following SBC's later merger with Union Bank of Switzerland, the SBC part was dropped from the name; in 2000 when the new UBS got restructured the Dillon Read name was dropped, although it was brought back in 2005 as Dillon Read Capital Management, UBS's ill-fated hedge fund operations.

Union Bank of Switzerland

The Union Bank of Switzerland emerged in 1912 when the Bank in Winterthur fused with the Toggenburger Bank. The Bank in Winterthur, founded in 1862 with an initial share capital of CHF 5 million, focused on providing financing for industry and other companies, and had profited considerably from its close railroad connections and large warehousing facilities during the American Civil War when cotton prices rose dramatically. The Toggenburger Bank was founded in 1863 with an initial share capital of CHF 1.5 million, and specialized as a savings and mortgage bank for individual customers, maintaining a branch office network in eastern Switzerland. The new company was initially traded under the English name Swiss Banking Association, but in 1921 it was changed to Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) to mirror its French name, Union de Banques Suisses. In German, the bank was known as the Schweizerische Bankgesellschaft (SBG).

The combined bank had total assets of CHF 202 million and a total shareholders' equity of CHF 46 million. In 1917, UBS completed the construction of a new headquarters, Münzhof, in Zurich's Bahnhofstrasse, considered to be the Wall Street of Switzerland. By 1923, offices were established throughout Switzerland. Although the bank suffered in the aftermath of World War I and the Great Depression, it was able to make several smaller acquisitions; in 1937 it established Intrag AG, an asset management business responsible for investment trusts, (i.e. mutual funds). The activities of the Union Bank of Switzerland during World War II were not publicly known until decades after the war, when it was demonstrated that UBS likely took active roles in trading stolen gold, securities, and other assets during World War II. The issue of "unclaimed property" of Holocaust victims became a major issue for UBS in the mid-1990s, and a series of revelations in 1997 brought the issue to the forefront of national attention in 1996 and 1997. UBS confirmed that a large number of accounts had gone unclaimed as a result of the bank's policy of requiring death certificates from family members to claim the contents of the account. UBS's handling of these revelations were largely criticized and the bank received significant negative attention in the U.S. UBS came under significant pressure, particularly from American politicians, to compensate Holocaust survivors who were making claims against the bank.

Shortly after the end of World War II, Union Bank of Switzerland completed the acquisition of the Eidgenössische Bank, a large Zürich-based bank that became insolvent. As a result of the merger, Union Bank of Switzerland exceeded CHF 1 billion in assets and moved its operations to Zürich. UBS opened branches and acquired a series of banks in Switzerland in the following years, growing from 31 offices in 1950 to 81 offices by the early 1960s. In 1960, Union Bank of Switzerland acquired an 80% stake in Argor SA, a Swiss precious metals refinery founded in 1951 in the canton of Ticino. UBS continues to issue gold bars via Argor-Heraeus which is famous for the unique kinebar holographic technology it uses to provide enhanced protection against bank gold bar counterfeiting. By 1962, Union Bank of Switzerland reached CHF 6.96 billion of assets, narrowly edging ahead of Swiss Bank Corporation to become the largest bank in Switzerland. The rapid growth was punctuated by the 1967 acquisition of Interhandel, which made UBS one of the strongest banks in Europe. By the 1980s, Union Bank of Switzerland established a position as a leading European underwriter of Eurobonds. Following two major acquisitions in 1986 (Phillips & Drew and Deutsche Länderbank), UBS made its first purchase in the United States in 1991 with Chase Investors Management Corporation, the asset management business of Chase Manhattan Bank. At the time of the acquisition, the business managed in excess of US$30 billion in assets. The bank's investments had been in the conservative asset management and life insurance businesses; further, 60% of the bank's profits came from its even more conservative Swiss banking operations. In 1993, Credit Suisse outbid Union Bank of Switzerland for Switzerland's Swiss Volksbank, the fifth largest bank in Switzerland which had run into financial difficulties in the early 1990s. The acquisition propelled Credit Suisse ahead of Union Bank of Switzerland as the largest bank in Switzerland for the first time. Prior to the merger with Swiss Bank Corporation, UBS purchased a group of smaller Swiss banks in 1994 including the Cantonal Bank of Appenzell-Ausserrhoden in 1996, and in 1997 Schröder, Münchmeyer, Hengst & Co. from Lloyds Bank was acquired to improve access to the German investment banking and private wealth management markets.

Merger of Union Bank of Switzerland and Swiss Bank Corporation: 1998

During the mid-1990s, Union Bank of Switzerland came under fire from dissident shareholders critical of its conservative management and lower return on equity. Martin Ebner, through his investment trust, BK Vision, became the largest shareholder in Union Bank of Switzerland and attempted to force a major restructuring of the bank's operations. Looking to take advantage of the situation, Credit Suisse approached Union Bank of Switzerland about a merger that would have created the second largest bank in the world in 1996. Union Bank of Switzerland's management and board unanimously rebuffed the proposed merger. Ebner, who supported the idea of a merger, led a shareholder revolt that resulted in the replacement of Union Bank of Switzerland's chairman, Robert Studer with Mathis Cabiallavetta, one of the key architects of the merger with Swiss Bank Corporation. On 8 December 1997, Union Bank of Switzerland and Swiss Bank Corporation announced an all-stock merger. At the time of the merger, Union Bank of Switzerland and Swiss Bank Corporation were the second and third largest banks in Switzerland, respectively. Discussions between the two banks had begun several months earlier, less than a year after rebuffing Credit Suisse's merger overtures. The merger resulted in the creation of UBS AG, a new bank with total assets of more than US$590 billion (~$1.1 trillion in 2025), the largest of its kind. During the merger, UBS chairman Marcel Ospel originally wanted to call the company "United Bank of Switzerland", but settled on simply using "UBS" following the acquisition of American brokerage firm, Paine Webber. Colloquially referred to as the "New UBS" to distinguish itself from the former Union Bank of Switzerland, the combined bank became the second largest in the world at the time, behind only the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi. Additionally, the merger pulled together the banks' various asset management businesses to create the world's largest money manager, with approximately US$910 billion in assets under management. Union Bank of Switzerland's Mathis Cabiallavetta became chairman of the new bank while Swiss Bank's Marcel Ospel was named chief executive officer. Nearly 80% of the top management positions were filled by legacy Swiss Bank professionals. Prior to the merger, Swiss Bank Corporation was considered to be further along than Union Bank of Switzerland in developing its international investment banking business, particularly in the higher margin advisory businesses where Warburg Dillon Read was considered to be the more established platform. Union Bank of Switzerland had a stronger retail and commercial banking business in Switzerland, while both banks had strong asset management capabilities. After the merger was completed, it was speculated that a series of losses suffered by UBS on its equity derivative positions in late 1997 was a contributing factor in pushing UBS management to consummate the merger.

Paine Webber and international expansion: 2000–2006

On 3 November 2000, UBS merged with Paine Webber, an American stock brokerage and asset management firm led by chairman and CEO Donald Marron. At the time of its merger with UBS, Paine Webber had emerged as the fourth largest private client firm in the United States with 385 offices employing 8,554 brokers. The acquisition pushed UBS to the top wealth and asset management firm in the world. Initially, the business was given the divisional name UBS PaineWebber but in 2003 the 123-year-old name Paine Webber disappeared when it was renamed UBS Wealth Management USA. UBS took a CHF 1 billion write-down for the loss of goodwill associated with the retirement of the Paine Webber brand when it integrated its brands under the unified UBS name in 2003. John P. Costas, a former bond trader and co-head of Fixed income at Credit Suisse First Boston and head of Fixed Income Trading at Union Bank of Switzerland in 1998, was appointed CEO of UBS's investment banking division, which originated in SBC's Warburg Dillon Read division and was renamed UBS Warburg in December 2001. In an attempt to break into the elite bulge bracket of investment banks, in which UBS then had little success while rival Credit Suisse was establishing itself as a major player on Wall Street with the acquisition of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette in 2000, Costas shifted the growth strategy from acquiring entire firms to hiring individual investment bankers or teams of bankers from rival firms. Costas had followed a similar approach in building out the UBS fixed income business, hiring over 500 sales and trading personnel and increasing revenues from US$300 million in 1998 to over US$3 billion by 2001.

The arrival of former Drexel Burnham Lambert investment banker Ken Moelis marked a major coup for Costas. Moelis joined UBS from Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette in 2001 shortly after its acquisition by Credit Suisse First Boston (although Huw Jenkins claimed he had hired Moelis to the UK Parliamentary Banking commission while under oath, which is patently false). In his six years at UBS, Moelis ultimately assumed the role of president of UBS Investment Bank and was credited, along with Costas, with the build-out of UBS's investment banking operation in the United States. Within weeks of joining, Moelis brought over a team of 70 bankers from Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. Costas and Moelis hired more than 30 senior U.S. bankers from 2001 through 2004. It was estimated that UBS spent as much as US$600 million to US$700 million hiring top bankers in the U.S. during this three-year period. Among the bank's other major recruits during this period were Olivier Sarkozy, Ben Lorello, Blair Effron, and Jeff McDermott. By 2003, UBS had risen to fourth place from seventh in global investment banking fees, earning US$2.1 billion of the US$39 billion paid to investment banks that year, increasing 33%. Over the next four years, UBS consistently ranked in the top 4 in the global fee pool and established a track record of 20 consecutive quarters of rising profits. In 2006, UBS set up a joint venture in China (see UBS Securities, China branch). However, by the end of 2006, UBS began to experience changing fortunes. In late 2005, Costas headed a new hedge fund unit within UBS known as Dillon Read Capital Management. His former position was taken over by Huw Jenkins, a long-time legacy UBS investment banker. In 2006, UBS bankers Blair Effron and Michael Martin announced their departures. In March 2007, Moelis announced that he was leaving the company, and shortly thereafter founded a new business, Moelis & Company. As he had when joining UBS, Moelis took a large team of senior UBS investment bankers. Moelis's departure was caused primarily by repeated conflict over the availability of capital from the bank's balance sheet to pursue large transactions, particularly leveraged buyouts. The bank's apparent conservatism would be turned on its head when large losses were reported in various mortgage securities rather than corporate loans that generated investment banking fees. After Moelis, other notable departures included investment banking co-head Jeff McDermott in early 2007 and, as the 2008 financial crisis set in, other high-profile bankers such as Oliver Sarkozy in early 2008 and Ben Lorello in 2009.

UBS was fined $100 million by the FED in 2004 for trading in dollars with Iran and other sanctioned countries.