UBS lays off 100 in HK wealth management unit

An additional 100 Hong Kong financial workers lost their jobs yesterday as Swiss bank UBS took the axe to its wealth management division.

UBS is the world's biggest provider of money management services to the rich. But clients are pulling cash out of its private bank, which has also been rocked by a high-profile tax probe by United States authorities.

A spokesman said the redundancies, which claimed scalps across the wealth unit from senior managing directors to administrative staff, were a response to 'the slowdown in the global economy and the ongoing challenging economic conditions'.

UBS announced plans in February to cut more than 10 per cent of its global workforce to bring total staff numbers down to about 75,000 by the end of the year.

In yesterday's round of lay-offs, the bank also let 100 private bankers in Singapore go and a further 40 across Asia-Pacific. The cuts reduced staff numbers in its Asia-Pacific private bank by 7 per cent.

The troubled institution, which received 6 billion Swiss francs (HK$40.74 billion) of Swiss government aid last year, has been the largest European casualty of the financial meltdown.

It posted a 20.9 billion francs loss for last year, the largest in Swiss corporate history, after wrong-way bets on complex debt products and other illiquid securities.