UBS: We Have Got To Stop Letting Clients Run For The Exits, Trample Old Ladies On The Way Out, And Set Fire To The Building As They Leave

Author:: Bess Levin
Updated:: Jan 14, 2019
Original:: Jan 11, 2010

Ergo, we must do something to entice them to stay. I'm not saying evade taxes faster, Grübel
needs a new pony. But I'm not not saying it.

UBS AG's chief executive told staff Monday halting the bleeding of assets from its wealthy client division is "imperative," according to a memorandum on ethics provided by the Swiss bank. "Although one-off effects such as tax amnesties are unavoidable, we ourselves must not give clients any reason to leave the bank," Oswald Gruebel says in the memo.

Gruebel, a former Credit Suisse Group CEO, has used regular memorandums to address staff since he was installed as head of UBS last February. Monday's e-mailed memo is devoted to detailing a new code of conduct and ethics for UBS' private bankers.
"What has happened over the past few years must no longer be possible," Gruebel says in the memo.

Traders at the Swiss bank (presumably!) won't make that mistake again.

Apparently we spoke too soon when reporting UBS had presented every employee with a "specially commissioned watch" to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the bank's birth, as the gift was actually more of a gift basket that included fine china (which one recipient described as being of "pretty decent quality."