UBS has dismissed media reports that it intends to sell off its wealth management division in the Americas, formerly known as PaineWebber.

UBS has dismissed media reports that it intends to sell off its wealth management division in the Americas, formerly known as PaineWebber, according to Dow Jones.

The bank later told WealthBriefing that this media speculation was wrong.

The Zurich-listed bank has suffered a run of problems in the US market including a damaging tax evasion case and huge credit losses. As reported earlier this year, UBS Wealth Management in the Americas posted a pre-tax loss of SFr33million for the fourth quarter of last year, hit by litigation costs, but narrower than SFr47 million for the previous quarter. Inflows have improved, however. (Inflows have improved, however.) Other regional segments of UBS’s wealth arm, such as in Switzerland, made a profit in the final quarter. Some analysts, such as at Morgan Stanley, have argued that UBS's prospects have improved, putting the worst of its recent troubles behind it.

UBS – along with some other Swiss banks – has ceased to provide offshore banking to US clients following a costly, and long-running, legal row between the bank and US tax authorities. The firm paid a $780 million fine to settle criminal charges; in a separate, civil case, it agreed to pass some client account details to the US.

In October 2009, Robert McCann, a former head of Merrill Lynch’s wealth management business, took over as CEO of UBS’s wealth arm.

But despite the changes, improved client inflows and hires, speculation about UBS's Americas wealth business has not disappeared. Some media reports recently suggested that firms such as Wells Fargo could buy this business, the report said. Wells Fargo chairman and CEO John Stumpf has reportedly said he would like to increase the firm’s share of the US wealth management sector, possibly by an acquisition.