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