Swiss multinational investment bank, UBS, is expected to lay off about 500 of its employees, globally, as part of its restructuring plans and its efforts to invest in growth while ensuring efficiency.
As part of the move, the Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) division will be split into three separate units. This regionalisation and delayering of the Bank is a step towards placing more power in the hands of the relationship managers as well as the regional heads. Also, the wealth-management department will now function in close proximity with the other divisions of the Bank as well as clients, to boost growth. On the whole, the Company’s focus will be on lending to clients.
The staff have been informed through a memo that the wealth management division will be reorganised and streamlined. It is reported that this restructuring of the wealth management division is aimed to take the division to the “next level”. The financial services company wishes to ‘play big’ and realise its full potential, given the pressure to boost performance even while ensuring faster and smoother decision making.
The profits of UBS had dropped by 16 per cent in 2019, and the Bank had planned to invest $100 million on restructuring in the fourth quarter.
It is said that UBS’ wealth management division is the biggest in the world, and has more than $2.5tn of assets invested. However, the division has witnessed a slump in recent times. In fact, the Bank’s shares dipped as compared to its competitors in Europe in 2019.
