Financial Results
UBS Kickstarts $2 Billion Stock Buybacks
As stated before, the bank is targeting a return on equity of up to 15 per cent by the end of 2026. UBS has been in the process of integrating Credit Suisse in one of the biggest bank M&A deals since the 2008 financial crash.
UBS, the world’s largest
international wealth manager, said yesterday that from 3 April it
plans to start repurchasing up to $2 billion in shares.
As previously communicated, the Zurich-listed bank said it
expected to repurchase up to $1 billion of its stocks, starting
once UBS’s acquisition of Credit Suisse is
wrapped up.
That deal is scheduled for the end of the second quarter, it said
in a statement.
“Our ambition is for share repurchases to exceed our
pre-acquisition level by 2026,” it said.
By making the buybacks, UBS hopes to improve its return on
equity. The bank reported a fourth-quarter return on equity (on
an underlying basis, based on common equity Tier 1 capital) of
4.7 per cent. The lender said it intends to maintain a reported
return on CET1 capital of about 15 per cent by the end of 2026,
rising to about 18 per cent in 2028. In Q4 2023, UBS logged
a pre-tax loss of $751 million, including credit loss costs of
$136 million.
In total, more than 298.5 million UBS shares were repurchased via
a separate trading line on the SIX Swiss Exchange as part of the
2022 share repurchase programme launched on 31 March 2022.
This block accounted for 8.62 per cent.
