Impact of the financial crisis (2008-2009)

The bank's losses continued to mount in 2008 when UBS announced in April 2008 that it was writing down a further $19 billion of investments in subprime and other mortgage assets. By this point, UBS's total losses in the mortgage market were in excess of $37 billion, the largest such losses of any of its peersIn response to its losses, UBS announced a 15 billion CHFto raise the additional funds need to shore up its depleted reserves of capital. UBS cut its dividend in order to protect its traditionally high  ratio, seen by investors as a key to its credibility as the world's largest wealth management company, who had been the architect of the merger that created UBS in 1998, also announced that he would step down as chairman of the bank to be replaced by  the bank’s general counsel.In October 2008, UBS announced they had placed CHF 6 billion of new capital, through mandatory convertible notes, with  The SNB (Swiss National Bank) and UBS made an agreement to transfer approximately USD 60 billion of currently illiquid securities and various assets from UBS to a separate fund entity In November 2008, UBS put $6 billion of equity into the new “bad bank” entity, keeping only an option to benefit if the value of its assets were to recover. Heralded as a “neat” package by the New York Times, the UBS structure guaranteed clarity for UBS investors by making an outright saleUBS announced, in February 2009, that it had lost nearly 20 billion CHF (US$17.2 billion) in 2008, the biggest single-year loss of any company in Swiss history. Since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2007,UBS had written down approximately $50bn of mortgage related assets and announced 11,000 job cuts.

Merger of U.B.S. and SBC

During the mid-1990s, UBS came under fire from dissident shareholders, critical of bank's relatively conservative management and lower return on equityMartin Ebner, through his investment trust, BK Vision became the largest shareholder in UBS and attempted to force a major restructuring of the bank’s operations The battles between Ebner and UBS management proved a distraction to the bank in the mid-1990s. Looking to take advantage of the situation,  approached UBS about a merger that would have created the second largest bank in the world in 1996 UBS's management and board unanimously rebuffed the proposed merger Ebner, who supported the idea of a merger, led a major shareholder revolt that resulted in the replacement of UBS's chairman, Robert StuderStuder's successor Mathis Cabiallavetta would be one of the key architects of the merger with

On December 8, 1997, Union Bank of Switzerland andannounced an all stock merger. At the time of the merger, Union Bank of Switzerland and Swiss Bank Corporation were the second and third largest banks in Switzerland, respectively both trailing  Discussions between the two banks had begun several months earlier, less than a year after rebuffing 's merger overtures

The all-stock merger resulted in the creation  a huge new bank with total assets of more than $590 billion Also referred to as the "New UBS" to distinguish itself from the former Union Bank of Switzerland, the combined bank became the second largest in the world, at that time, behind only the  Additionally, the merger pulled together the banks' various asset management businesses to create the world's largest money manager, with approximately $910 billion in assets under managementThe merger, which was billed as a merger of equals, resulted in UBS's shareholders receiving 60% of the combined company and Swiss Bank's shareholders receiving the remaining 40% of the bank's common shares. UBS's  became chairman of the new bank while Swiss Bank's  was named chief executive However, it quickly became evident that from a management perspective, it was Swiss Bank that was buying UBS as nearly 80% of the top management positions were filled by legacy Swiss Bank professionalsAdditionally, UBS professionals suffered more headcount reductions, particularly in the investment banking unit where there were heavy cuts in the corporate finance and equities businesses

Union Bank of Switzerland: 1945-1998

Shortly after the end of  UBS completed the acquisition of Eidgenössische Bank, a large Zurich-based bank that became insolvent. As a result of the merger, UBS exceeded 1 billion CHF of assets for the first time and completed the transition of its operations to Zurich. Although UBS opened an office in New York in 1946, the bank remained primarily focused on its domestic business. Prior to the end of , the Swiss banking landscape was dominated by  and  UBS was among the next group of large banks that included (Swiss Volksbank or Swiss Popular Bank) and . Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the Union Bank of Switzerland, which was at best the third largest bank in Switzerland would catch up to its larger peers and by the 1970s surpass them in terms of sizeUBS opened branches and acquired a series of banks in Switzerland growing from 31 offices in 1950 to 81 offices by the beginning of the 1960s. Throughout the 1950s, UBS was the most acquisitive bank in Switzerland, acquiring Banque Palézieux & Cie. Volksbank InterlakenWeck, Aebi & Cie Banque Tissières fils & Cie. (1956), Banque de Sion  Banque de Brigue the Crédit GruyérienCrédit SierroisBank Cantrade AG (1960) and Volksbank in VispIn addition to these bank acquisitions, UBS also acquired an 80% stake in Argor SA, a Swiss precious metal refinery founded in 1951, through whom they started to issue UBS branded gold bars. In 1973, the bank increased the stake to full 100% ownership only to withdraw by 1999 with ownership of the refinery changing to Hereaus & Management. Nevertheless, UBS continues to issue gold bars via Argor-Heraeus which is famous for the uniqueholographic technology it uses to provide enhanced protection against bank gold bar counterfeiting

Swiss Bank Corporation: 1945-1998

Swiss Bank Corporation found itself in relatively strong financial condition at the end of World War II, with 1.8 billion CHF of assets By contrast, the Basler Handelsbank (Commercial Bank of Basel), founded in 1862 and one of the largest banks in Switzerland, was insolvent at the end of the war and was consequently acquired by SBC in 1945. SBC remained among the Swiss government's leading underwriters of debt in the post-war years. However, by 1947 SBC was shifting its focus back to its traditional business of lending money principally to private companies as part of the postwar rebuilding of Europe Meanwhile, the firm continued its expansion to international markets, particularly the United States where SBC focused primarily on commercial banking for corporate clients. Within Switzerland, SBC remained a full service bank with a domestic retail banking network and an asset management business
SBC prospered throughout the 1950s and embarked on a period of sustained growth. The bank, which had entered the 1950s with 31 Branch Offices in Switzerland and three abroad, more than doubled its assets from the end of the war to 4 billion CHF by the end of the 1950s and doubled assets again by the mid-1960s, exceeding 10 billion CHF in 1965 SBC acquired Banque Populaire Valaisanne,  and the Banque Populaire de Sierre. The firm continued to open new offices in the U.S. in the mid-1960s and it was also at this time that SBC began to expand into Asia and opened representative offices throughout Latin America. The bank opened a full branch office in Tokyo in 1970. The bank also made a number of acquisitions to enhance its position in various products including private banking

As its own home market was highly competitive, SBC focused on commercial banking for American and other multinational companies. Through 1979, SBC was consistently the largest of the three major Swiss Bank by assets, except for short periods in 1962 and 1968 when UBS temporarily moved ahead of SBC. After 1979, although its balance sheet had grown to 74 billion CHF of assets, the bank would typically rank second to UBS which firmly established itself as the largest Swiss bank in the 1980sSBC would retain this position for the next 15 years untilleapfrogged into the top spot following its 1995 acquisitions of and

FOREX TREDING

The foreign exchange market is the largest and most  financial market in the world. Traders include large banks,  currency , corporations, , and other . The average daily volume in the global foreign exchange and related markets is continuously growing. Daily turnover was reported to be over 3.2 trillion in April 2007 by the  Since then, the market has continued to grow. According to Euromoney's annual FX Poll, volumes grew a further 41% between 2007 and 2008Of the $3.98 trillion daily global turnover, trading inaccounted for around $1.36 trillion, or 34.1% of the total, making London by far the global center for foreign exchange. In second and third places respectively, trading in accounted for 16.6%, and  accounted for 6.0% In addition to "traditional" turnover, $2.1 trillion was traded in Exchange-traded FX  were introduced in 1972 at theand are actively traded relative to most other futures contracts.Several other developed countries also permit the trading of FX derivative products (like currency futures and options on currency futures) on their exchanges. All these developed countries already have fully convertible capital accounts. Most emerging countries do not permit FX derivative products on their exchanges in view of prevalent controls on the capital accounts. However, a few select emerging countries (e.g., Korea, South Africa, Indiahave already successfully experimented with the currency futures exchanges, despite having some controls on the capital account.

Foreign exchange trading increased by 38% between April 2005 and April 2006 and has more than doubled since 2001. This is largely due to the growing importance of foreign exchange as an asset class and an increase in fund management assets, particularly of hedge funds and pension funds. The diverse selection of execution venues have made it easier for retail traders to trade in the foreign exchange market. In 2006, retail traders constituted over 2% of the whole FX market volumes with an average daily trade volume of over50-60 billion Because foreign exchange is an  market where brokers/dealers negotiate directly with one another, there is no central exchange or clearing house. The biggest geographic trading centre is the UK, primarily London, which according to estimates has increased its share of global turnover in traditional transactions from 31.3% in April 2004 to 34.1% in April 2007. Due to London's dominance in the market, a particular currency's quoted price is usually the London market price. For instance, when the  calculates the value of its  every day, they use the London market prices at noon that day.