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UBS 3Q profit jumps 73%
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October 26, 2000: 5:55 a.m. ET
Investment banking arm UBS Warburg doubles earnings, managed assets rise
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LONDON (CNNfn) - UBS AG beat analysts' forecasts Thursday with a 73 percent surge in third-quarter profit as earnings at its investment bank UBS Warburg doubled, ahead of the purchase of Paine Webber Group Inc. that will make the Swiss company the world's top private banking organization.
The Zurich-based bank said net profit rose to 2.08 billion Swiss francs ($1.14 billion) from 1.2 billion francs a year earlier. Analysts had been expecting, on average, a figure closer to 1.9 billion francs, according to Reuters.
UBS published its third-quarter earnings a month ahead of schedule, saying it wanted to provide transparency for its shareholders and those of U.S.-broker PaineWebber. The $10.8 billion acquisition is expected to be completed in November.
UBS Warburg, which advises companies on mergers, acquisitions and fund-raising, saw pretax profit more than double to 1.13 billion francs. Third-quarter profit dropped 7 percent from the previous quarter's tally because of increasing turbulence in securities markets.
UBS shares rose 8.2 francs, or 3.6 percent, to 240 francs in early trading in Zurich.
"Basically, the earnings figure is good," said Regina Anhorn, an analyst at Lombard Odier, pointing out an encouraging increase in the value of UBS's assets under management.
UBS, one of the world's largest managers of private wealth, said assets under management increased to 1.75 trillion francs at the end of September from 1.71 trillion at the end of June. A faltering performance in the first half of 2000 had seen the value of the company's managed assets flat in the first quarter, and declining 3 percent in the second quarter.
The institutional asset management unit, serving bodies such as big pension funds, continued to show a net outflow of funds, with a drop of 9 billion francs during the third quarter.
In the Swiss-based private banking division, assets grew to 707 billion francs from 683 billion at the end of the second quarter. 
--from staff and wire reports
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