UBS Officials Promise to Change Bank’s Ways

BASEL -- The Swiss banking giant, UBS, will put its investment banking business on a much tighter leash, top executives said Wednesday, as it tries to overhaul its corporate governance in the wake of losses suffered in the subprime mortgage collapse, The New York Times reported.

“We no longer aim to offer everything to everyone in investment banking,” the chief executive, Marcel Rohner, told investors Wednesday at an annual shareholders meeting, the paper reported. “We do not need an oversized balance sheet. We do not need an oversized inventory of trading portfolios. And we do not need an unnecessary concentration of risk.”

Rohner was addressing 4,200 shareholders, who gathered Wednesday in the St. Jakob stadium in Basel. It was the second time in two months that management has asked shareholders to approve measures to raise capital, the paper reported.

On Wednesday, shareholders were being asked approve a rights offer of about $15 billion. Two months ago, shareholders were asked to approve plans to raise $13 billion, the paper reported.

-- NYSSCPA.org News Staff

Posted on 4/23/08