UBS's Investment Banking Head May Have To Slash His Own Expenses "Like A Jewish Shopkeeper"

As those of you keeping up with the many trials and travails of UBS know, the last couple years have been fairly brutal for investment banking chief Carsten Kengeter. Pre-tax IBD profit was down 55 percent YoY through June, employees are constantly on his ass about getting paid, the comments he made in attempt to "rally the troops" re: "slashing expenses like a Jewish shopkeeper" were totally taken in the wrong way, some guy perpetrated a $2 billion fraud (which was partially to blame for CK getting passed over for the promotion he was gunning for), and to top it all off, the higher-ups actually accepted his offer to forgo a bonus for 2011, which he would never have put out there if he thought they'd actually go for it. And now, as a thanks for all his hard work, management is publicly mulling the idea of lightening his load and paycheck. UBS is weighing a shakeup at the top of its investment bank that would give a reduced role to Carsten Kengeter and increased responsibilities to his co-head Andrea Orcel, three people with knowledge of the matter said. The board is meeting in New York today to consider a reorganization of the unit that will include cuts centered on the fixed-income operations that Kengeter has been responsible for since 2008, said the people, who asked not to be identified before the matter is made public. An announcement may come when UBS reports third-quarter earnings on Oct. 30, they said...Three senior executives who declined to speak publicly said they expect Kengeter to leave the bank before long. A person with knowledge of Kengeter’s thinking said he doesn’t plan to go. A UBS official declined to comment. Ermotti told staff in a memo this month he’ll take “all actions necessary” to tackle the “paradigm shift” in banking and will continue “remodeling” UBS. He said in July that the market environment has completely changed since the bank announced reorganization plans for the securities unit in November. UBS May Reduce Kengeter Role in Overhaul of Investment Bank Unit [Bloomberg] Related: Was That Wrong? Should Carsten Kengeter Not Have Done That?
Author:
Publish date:

As those of you keeping up with the many trials and travails of UBS know, the last couple years have been fairly brutal for investment banking chief Carsten Kengeter. Pre-tax IBD profit was down 55 percent YoY through June, employees are constantly on his ass about getting paid, the comments he made in attempt to "rally the troops" re: "slashing expenses like a Jewish shopkeeper" were totally taken the wrong way, some guy perpetrated a $2 billion fraud (which was partially to blame for CK getting passed over for the promotion he was gunning for), and to top it all off, the higher-ups accepted his offer to forgo a bonus for 2011, which he would never have put out there if he thought they'd actually go for it. And now, as a thanks for all his hard work, management is publicly mulling the idea of lightening his load and paycheck, which could not come at a worse time considering he just put a down payment on a signed first-edition copy of Mein Kampf.*

UBS is weighing a shakeup at the top of its investment bank that would give a reduced role to Carsten Kengeter and increased responsibilities to his co-head Andrea Orcel, three people with knowledge of the matter said. The board is meeting in New York today to consider a reorganization of the unit that will include cuts centered on the fixed-income operations that Kengeter has been responsible for since 2008, said the people, who asked not to be identified before the matter is made public. An announcement may come when UBS reports third-quarter earnings on Oct. 30, they said...Ermotti told staff in a memo this month he’ll take “all actions necessary” to tackle the “paradigm shift” in banking and will continue “remodeling” UBS. He said in July that the market environment has completely changed since the bank announced reorganization plans for the securities unit in November.

Despite this setback, and three executives saying "they expect Kengeter to leave the bank before long," an individual "with knowledge of Kengeter's thinking" told Bloomberg he "doesn't plan to go." You want to get rid of him, you're gonna have to do a lot better than this.

UBS May Reduce Kengeter Role in Overhaul of Investment Bank Unit [Bloomberg]
Related: Was That Wrong? Should Carsten Kengeter Not Have Done That?
*To Carsten,
All the best.
AH

Related

News

UBS Broker May Have Taken Stress Of The Job Out On 70 Windows In Beverly Hills, Encino Using "Slingshot Projectiles"

This is his story. The unlikely suspect in a string of window breakings in Beverly Hills -- a 58-year-old Encino investment adviser -- may be connected to 70 additional cases in the area, authorities said. Michael Steven Poret, a broker at UBS Financial Services, was arrested in Encino last week. Police say that Poret vandalized numerous businesses along Ventura Boulevard and several private homes in Beverly Hills. A witness account and private surveillance footage have depicted the vandal as a graying man in white gloves firing marbles at plate glass windows with a slingshot from the driver's seat of his car, then driving away in no apparent hurry. Authorities believe that Poret could be connected to more than 20 vandalism incidents in Beverly Hills and more than 50 in Encino, as well as several other vandalism reports authorities have received in Van Nuys and Topanga Canyon. The vandal appears to target businesses indiscriminately, hitting coffee shops, an autism treatment center and a salon. Luie Velasquez, a detective with the West Valley division of the Los Angeles Police Department, said the police's top theory is that the suspect sought excitement. "Your guess is as good as mine," Velasquez said. "For whatever reason, these individuals get some sort of thrill from smashing windows." Poret was first arrested July 3 after a Beverly Hills patrol officer spotted a slingshot in his vehicle during a traffic stop for a vehicle code violation. A search of his vehicle revealed brass knuckles, knives and slingshot projectiles. Poret was arrested again Thursday in an early morning raid on his Encino home, where police discovered firearms, bb guns, slingshots and marbles similar to those used in the window-breakings. A very understanding victim whose windows were hit three times and cost him $7,000 to repair had this to say: "I mean, I know that an investment bankers* are a little nuts. But you know, maybe the market is that bad. I don't get that. He must be a very frustrated guy." Alleged window-smashing broker may be suspect in 70 more cases [LATimes via TRB] *All together now: broker ≠ investment banker ≠ trader ≠ bank teller

News

Layoffs Watch '12: UBS

Cuts are said to have gone down at the Swiss bank yesterday, with more thought to be a' coming. From the front lines: "Massive cuts at UBS west coast IBD offices yesterday-- 50 percent headcount reductions in both LA and San Fransisco, from MDs down to admins. HR was flown in to do the job. Rumor is that LA and SF office will be closed down completely next year. There were also some cuts in NYC, in FIG and TMT."

News

UBS Chairman: Other Banks Will Have To Fire Thousands Of Employees Too, Y'Know

Difference is, UBS is the only one that's faced facts already, 'cause they're consistently ahead of the curve like that. Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, all those other guys will get a cold hard dose of reality sooner or later, though, and when they do they'll say, "Damn! UBS was all over this!" A day after UBS AG announced it was cutting up to 10,000 jobs by 2015, UBS chairman Axel Weber is warning that many of the Swiss banking giant’s rivals may have to follow suit...“I suspect that many banks have not yet really understood what the consequences of the new capital rules for business will be when they come into full effect in 2019,” Weber was quoted as saying in Wednesday’s edition of the German daily Handelsblatt. “We, on the other hand, see this new world very clearly,” he said. “Besides that, Swiss rules commit us to even higher own capital demands than the 10 percent capital quota that Basel III orders.” UBS Chief: Other Banks May Need To Downsize Too [AP] Earlier: Layoffs Watch ’12: UBS Tells Employees Not To Bother Themselves With Figuring Out How To Get Into Work (Ever Again)

News

Layoffs Watch '12: Deutsche Bank, Barclays, Nomura, Credit Suisse, UBS

Things could be better in Europe. Big investment banks in Europe, including Nomura, Credit Suisse and UBS, are stepping up plans to cut jobs as they seek to adapt to a drastic slowdown in revenues and tighter regulation. Bank executives, headhunters and analysts say that the cuts are shaping up as the deepest since the start of the financial crisis after a disappointing summer dashed hopes of a business revival. One senior headhunter said many large investment banks will have “at least 20 per cent” fewer staff in capital markets and M&A advisory business in Europe by the end of the year compared with late 2011. “It [the market] has never been as bad as this. Bankers have long lost confidence in their banks but now they are also losing their self-confidence, their mojo,” a senior advisory banker said. Among the banks that will reduce their investment banking workforce is Japan’s Nomura, where London-based bankers say that they expect several hundred jobs to be removed in Europe alone as part of a $1bn cost-cutting effort. Switzerland’s largest bank UBS, which cut staff levels earlier than rivals by announcing 2,000 job cuts in the investment bank after a $2.3bn unauthorised trading loss last year, is preparing for intensified cuts as it is seeking to streamline further the unit, several people familiar with the situation said. At Credit Suisse, insiders estimate that the additional SFr1bn ($1bn) in groupwide cuts that were announced in July will translate into up to 1,000 jobs being lost, most of which would be in the investment bank. Analysts expect also Deutsche Bank and Barclays to reduce their headcount further this year. Deutsche said two months ago it would reduce staff levels by 1,900. Investment Banks Eye Europe Job Cuts [FT]

News

Layoffs Watch '12: UBS Has Something To Share

Management has decided to burn the investment bank down and start fresh. Basically. UBS is set to unveil a radical downsizing of its struggling investment bank next week in a move that will prompt the loss of up to 10,000 jobs across the Swiss banking group. Switzerland’s largest bank by assets will significantly shrink the trading side and complexity of its investment bank and as a consequence also cut thousands of jobs in its back office over the next few years, three people close to the situation said. The job cuts will amount to almost a sixth of the bank’s workforce of 63,500 at the end of June. They will not happen all at once and the precise number is still unclear... It comes on top of another – still ongoing – programme announced last year to cut 3,500 jobs. The new strategy, hammered out in several executive board meetings in New York this week and set to be announced next Tuesday, will lead to the closure of a sizeable part of UBS’s fixed-income trading operations and other capital-intensive areas of the investment bank. UBS To Cut Up To 10,000 Jobs [FT] Related: UBS’s Investment Banking Head May Have To Slash His Own Expenses “Like A Jewish Shopkeeper”