So far, the trading scandal doesn’t appear to have significantly hurt the confidence of UBS’s wealthy clients, who had pulled hundreds of millions of francs from the bank in 2008 and 2009 after Swiss authorities had to bail out UBS following about $50 billion in securities write-downs. A bruising tax evasion battle with the U.S. also drove clients away. UBS only managed to stem the exodus of clients late last year. [WSJ]
Rogue Traders
UBS trader Kweku Adoboli, accused over the Swiss banking giant’s $2.3 billion losses from unauthorized trades, was “sorry beyond words,” his attorney said Thursday. [NYP]
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Banks
UBS Investment Bank Chief Urges Employees To Remember Firm’s Legitimate Months
By Bess Levin
Carsten Kengeter, head of UBS’ investment banking division, sent a rallying message to staff on Sunday night urging them to “move forward forcefully and decisively” following the disclosure of $2.3bn of losses from unauthorised trading…Mr Kengeter e-mailed staff saying the incident should not “undermine our hard won achievements since the crisis.” [FT, related]
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Banks
Facebook ‘Friends’ Find Unimaginably Cruel Way To Kick Kweku Adoboli When He’s Down
By Bess Levin
As the users of Mark Zuckerberg’s poking machine among us can attest, there are many things you can expect from your Facebook friends. You can expect that they’ll keep you abreast of every insignificant moment of their entire lives. You can expect that they’ll post public affirmations about being “stronger than this” following a break-up or a shitty lunch. You can expect that, when taking a trip, they’ll let you know the flight number, when they’re on the way to the airport, going through security, sitting at the gate**, waiting to take off, defying the request to power down their phone, losing said battle, touching down on the runway, waiting for their bags and still thinking about the person across the aisle who gave them a weird vibe. You can expect that they’ll upload countless photos of their trip with at least one set devoted to posing (alone) on the beach like they’re shooting the god damn Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, having forced their travel companion to play photog. You can expect that they’ll assume you want to be friends with their household pet. You can expect that they’ll ask you to send positive thoughts into the universe when said pet when it comes down with a common cold.
As a card-carrying member of Facebook, UBS trader Kweku Adoboli was aware of the social contract one enters when becoming friends with people on the ‘book and held up his end of the bargain, dutifully ‘liking’ the status messages of friends forced to sit through 30-minute delays at Heathrow and keeping his fingers crossed that Mr. Fluffernutterbigglesworthjosecanseconiner would recover soon. Which is why it must have stung pretty badly when, after all he’s done for his so-called friends, they couldn’t toss him one bone and help him out of a tight spot. Continue reading »
The other day we noted that in the course of making fake trades at SocGen, Jerome Kerviel had invented a fake client who he’d named Matt, whose bio Kerviel added little flourishes to such as the fact that Matt apparently loved to play rugby. Today we hear from a non-imaginary colleague of Kerviel’s, none too happy about the fact that he owes her, a bottle of bubbly she’s probably never gonna get. Continue reading »
Was that wrong? Should he not have done that?
Under questioning by Judge Dominique Pauthe, Kerviel said he began making larger bets in 2005 and started falsifying transactions indicating he had covered his bets. Kerviel said he continued to exceed the 125 million-euro trading limit set for the Delta One trading desk where he worked in the years after 2005. “Seventy percent of the time, limits were exceeded,” Kerviel said when a prosecutor said he was the only one who exceeded limits. He said that the controls on his computer were “deactivated,” allowing him to fake transactions. The head of his trading desk knew as early as April 2007 that Kerviel was making fictitious transactions, Kerviel said.
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