By Kane Wu and Selena Li
HONG KONG (Reuters) – UBS will start cutting Asia investment banking jobs at Credit Suisse next month, three people with knowledge of the matter said, as the banks move towards integrating businesses.
UBS completed its emergency takeover of embattled rival Credit Suisse last week, forging a Swiss banking and wealth management giant with a $1.6 trillion balance sheet and a workforce of 120,000.
In the Asia Pacific region, there will be significant reduction in Credit Suisse investment bankers covering Australia and China, where the two banks overlap most, two of the sources said.
UBS is also looking to axe most of Credit Suisse’s Asia consumer and retail and general industrial group coverage teams, the two sources said.
Most of the Credit Suisse technology, media and telecoms team’s investment bankers will be retained, the three sources said, with one adding that dealmakers covering non-China financial institutions are also likely to be retained.
UBS informed staff about the looming cuts on Tuesday, the first two sources said. It was not immediately clear how many jobs will be axed in total.
All the sources declined to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the media.
Both UBS and Credit Suisse declined to comment.
Reuters this month reported that UBS was looking to retain more than 100 Credit Suisse investment bankers in Asia and was in advanced discussions to keep dozens of senior dealmakers in countries including South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and India.
The bulk of Credit Suisse investment bankers in Southeast Asia have left, said one of the three sources and a fourth person with knowledge of the matter.
The priority for UBS now is to have its new regional leadership look at Credit Suisse’s book and client list because the risk profiles of the two banks’ clients are very different, said a fifth source with knoweledge of UBS plans.
Former Credit Suisse bankers in Asia are still operating independently from their new UBS colleagues and working on live deals, mandates and new pitches on their own, said one of the first three sources and the fifth person.
(Reporting by Kane Wu and Selena Li in Hong Kong; Additional reporting by Yantoultra Ngui in Singapore; Editing by David Goodman)
