UBS headquarters location Zürich
UBS Group AG is a multinational investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland. Co-headquartered in the cities of Zürich and Basel, it maintains a presence in all major financial centres as the largest Swiss banking institution and the largest private bank in the world. UBS client services are known for their strict bank–client confidentiality and culture of banking secrecy. Because of the bank's large positions in the Americas, EMEA, and Asia Pacific markets, the Financial Stability Board considers it a global systemically important bank.
Apart from private banking, UBS provides wealth management, asset management, and investment banking services for private, corporate, and institutional clients with international service. UBS manages the largest amount of private wealth in the world, counting approximately half of the world's billionaires among its clients. Despite its trimming of sell-side operations, UBS maintains a global investment bank and is considered a primary market maker. The bank also maintains numerous underground bank vaults, bunkers, and storage facilities for gold bars around the Swiss Alps and internationally. Partly due to its banking secrecy, it has been at the centre of numerous tax avoidance investigations undertaken by U.S., French, German, Israeli, and Belgian authorities. UBS operations in Switzerland and the United States were respectively ranked first and second on the 2018 Financial Secrecy Index.
As of May 2022, UBS is the third largest bank in Europe with a market capitalization of $63 billion. It is one of the eight global "Bulge Bracket" banks. It has over CHF 3.2 trillion in assets under management (AUM), approximately CHF 2.8 trillion of which are invested assets. In June 2017, its return on invested capital was 11.1%, followed by Goldman Sachs' 9.35%, and JPMorgan Chase's 9.456%. In late 2016, UBS established a blockchain technology research lab in London to advance its cyber security and encryption of client activities. Based on regional deal flow and political influence, UBS is considered one of the "biggest, most powerful financial institutions in the world". The company's capital strength, security protocols, and reputation for discretion have yielded a substantial market share in banking and a high level of brand loyalty. Alternatively, it receives routine criticism for facilitating tax noncompliance and off-shore financing. UBS is a primary dealer and Forex counterparty of the U.S. Federal Reserve.Global Wealth Management
UBS's global wealth management advisory division offers high-net-worth individuals around the world a range of advisory and investment products and services. As of the end of 2016, UBS Wealth Management's invested assets totalled CHF 977billion. The whole companies assets under management (AUM) amounted to US$1,737.5 billion in 2015, representing a 1% decrease in AUM compared to the equivalent data of 2014. As of 2018, UBS manages the largest amount of private wealth in the world, counting approximately half of the world's billionaires among its clients. More than 60% of total invested assets in UBS Wealth Management belong to individuals with a net worth of CHF 10 million or more. Of the remaining 40% of total invested assets, 30% of the total belong to individuals with net worth between CHF 1 million and CHF 10 million and the last 10% of total assets belong to individuals with a net worth of less than CHF 1 million. UBS offers brokerage services and products as well as asset management and other investment advisory and portfolio management products and services. Additionally, UBS provides a broad range of securities and savings products that are supported by the firm's underwriting and research activities as well as clients' orders management and execution and also clearing services for transactions originated by individual investors. The business is further divided geographically with separate businesses focused on the U.S. and other international markets. Two thirds of the total invested assets come from Europe and Switzerland, with the final third coming mainly from the Asia-Pacific region.With its headquarters in Switzerland, UBS Wealth Management is present in more than 40 countries with approximately 190 offices (100 of which are in Switzerland). As of the end of 2018, around 23,600 people worldwide were employed by Global Wealth Management. In Switzerland, UBS Swiss Bank provides a complete set of retail banking services that includes chequing, savings, credit cards, and mortgage products for individuals. They offer cash management and commercial banking services for small businesses and corporate clients as well.UBS global wealth management advisory operations in the Americas consists of U.S. and Canadian wealth management businesses, as well as international business booked in the U.S. UBS Wealth Management in the U.S. is an outgrowth of the former Paine Webber brokerage business. The business was initially renamed UBS Paine Webber in March 2001, after it was acquired by UBS. The division offers wealth management advice for ultra-high net worth and high net worth clients. UBS was named "Best Bank for Wealth Management in North America" at the Euromoney Awards for Excellence 2017.UBS's main competitors in this division are Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Charles Schwab.Union Bank of Switzerland
The Union Bank of Switzerland emerged in 1912 when the Bank in Winterthur fused with the Toggenburger Bank. The Bank in Winterthur, founded in 1862 with an initial share capital of CHF 5 million, focused on providing financing for industry and other companies, and had profited considerably from its close railroad connections and large warehousing facilities during the American Civil War when cotton prices rose dramatically. The Toggenburger Bank was founded in 1863 with an initial share capital of CHF 1.5 million, and specialized as a savings and mortgage bank for individual customers, maintaining a branch office network in eastern Switzerland. The new company was initially traded under the English name Swiss Banking Association, but in 1921 it was changed to Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) to mirror its French name, Union de Banques Suisses. In German, the bank was known as the Schweizerische Bankgesellschaft (SBG).The combined bank had total assets of CHF 202 million and a total shareholders' equity of CHF 46 million. In 1917, UBS completed the construction of a new headquarters in Zurich on Bahnhofstrasse, considered to be the Wall Street of Switzerland. By 1923, offices were established throughout Switzerland. Although the bank suffered in the aftermath of World War I and the Great Depression, it was able to make several smaller acquisitions; in 1937 it established Intrag AG, an asset management business responsible for investment trusts, (i.e. mutual funds).The activities of the Union Bank of Switzerland during World War II were not publicly known until decades after the war, when it was demonstrated that UBS likely took active roles in trading stolen gold, securities, and other assets during World War II. The issue of "unclaimed property" of Holocaust victims became a major issue for UBS in the mid-1990s, and a series of revelations in 1997 brought the issue to the forefront of national attention in 1996 and 1997. UBS confirmed that a large number of accounts had gone unclaimed as a result of the bank's policy of requiring death certificates from family members to claim the contents of the account. UBS's handling of these revelations were largely criticized and the bank received significant negative attention in the U.S. UBS came under significant pressure, particularly from American politicians, to compensate Holocaust survivors who were making claims against the bank.
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