Exclusive / UBS considers an exit from Switzerland - Semafor

The senior leadership of UBS has revived discussions about ways to move the bank out from under Swiss regulators’ heavy hand, including through a combination with a foreign bank, after a setback this week, people familiar with the matter said.

Switzerland’s parliament voted this week to advance a law requiring UBS to raise as much as $20 billion in capital, which bank executives say would gut its ability to lend profitably. “We can live with a black eye, but two black eyes and a broken ​nose is too much,” CEO Sergio Ermotti said.

UBS has been in a standoff for more than a year with the Swiss government, which is now demanding the bank shore up its foreign subsidiaries with fresh capital. Holding more capital hurts bank profits, and would put UBS at a disadvantage to US banks whose own capital is being freed up by a deregulatory Trump administration.

A merger is UBS’s most obvious way to redomicile outside Switzerland, but would be complicated. Its $1.7 trillion balance sheet and $146 billion market value limit the number of partners.

An overseas combination — perhaps with Morgan Stanley, which has long wanted UBS and its $7 trillion in wealth-management accounts — would offer a dramatic, huffy exit (and reunite UBS executive chairman Colm Kelleher with his old shop.) Standard Chartered and Deutsche Bank would be cheaper ways out.