UBS Puts a Smile on the Face of Europe’s Banks
It turns out the threat of a trade war isn’t always bad for bankers.
Smiling, and with good reason.
Photographer: Qilai Shen/BloombergUBS Group AG has kicked off the European banks’ earnings season after a quarter hit by fears of a global trade war, rising market volatility and slower economic growth. For all the jitters, expectations may be set too low.
The Swiss bank didn’t do too badly amid the gloom: Net income rose 9 percent to 1.28 billion Swiss francs ($1.29 billion), beating analyst estimates. The investment banking arm rode a pick-up in trading activity, with pretax profit up 44 percent, while UBS’s wealth managers earned the most in interest income and fees in at least five quarters. The current backdrop of rising interest rates and controlled market volatility has proved to be positive for the bank, even if geopolitical uncertainty dissuades some rich clients from trading and some firms from embarking on initial public offerings.