Swiss bank UBS has announced it is cutting 10,000 jobs worldwide as it slims down its investment banking activities.
The jobs will go over the next three years, and amount to 16% of its current workforce of 64,000.
UBS lost 39bn Swiss francs (£26bn; $42bn) during the financial crisis and had to be bailed out by the Swiss authorities.
The cuts are aimed at saving 3.4bn Swiss francs.
UBS chief executive Sergio Ermotti said: “This decision has been a difficult one, particularly in a business such as ours that is all about its people.
“Some reductions will result from natural attrition and we will take whatever measures we can to mitigate the overall effect.”
Risk averse
Zurich-based UBS will focus on its private bank and a smaller investment bank, ditching much of the riskier trading business which was responsible for the bulk of its losses.
In a joint letter to shareholders, chairman Axel Weber and chief excecutive Mr Ermotti said: “We will no longer operate to any significant extent in businesses where risk-adjusted returns cannot meet their cost of capital.”
UBS was one of the banks hardest hit during the global financial crisis.
Then last year, it lost a further 2bn Swiss francs due to the activities of Kweku Adoboli, an alleged rogue trader.
This prompted the-then chief executive Oswald Gruebel to resign. Mr Adoboli is currently on trial for fraud and false accounting. He denies the charges.
(BBC News)
