Confims what I have said here a month ago.

[quote=Broker Fee]

Confims what I have said here a month ago.

[quote=Broker Fee]

Confims what I have said here a month ago.

UBS Shops Around Former PaineWebber Unit, Suitors Balk<?: prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Dow Jones Newswires Feb 03, 2009

By Joe Bel Bruno

NEW YORK (DOW JONES)--UBS AG (UBS) is shopping around its U.S. wealth management business to a number of suitors as part of a global repositioning of the beleaguered Swiss bank, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.

The Zurich-based bank has held talks with Morgan Stanley and Wachovia Securities about a potential deal late last year, the people said. UBS has also approached other big U.S. banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Bank of America Corp. (BAC) to gauge interest in a combination.

However, the Swiss bank has so far been unable to find a buyer willing to pay top dollar for the U.S. unit since a broad realignment of Wall Street that has shuttered Lehman Brothers and nearly put others out of business. UBS paid $11.5 billion to establish a position in North America through its acquisition of PaineWebber in 2000.

UBS, hobbled by nearly $50 billion of credit-related losses in the past few years, has been trying to raise badly needed capital to stabilize its balance sheet. The company last August announced plans to reposition the bank, allowing its business units to operate more autonomously.

The talks with Morgan Stanley were held in December, according to a person briefed on the discussions. However, Morgan Stanley didn't believe the meetings were "very serious" and they never included Chief Executive John Mack.

A few months later, Mack led Morgan Stanley into a $2.7 billion deal to acquire a 51% stake in Citigroup Inc.'s (C) Smith Barney brokerage unit. It will become the nation's largest brokerage.

Charles "Chip" Roame, managing principal of Tiburon Strategic Advisors, a financial-services research-and-consulting firm, said recent consolidation and banks' need to raise capital eliminate some likely suitors in the near term.

Firms like JPMorgan, however, are better positioned to make a deal if UBS needs to complete a transaction in the next six months, he added.

However, both JPMorgan and UBS have had dealings with each other in the past. JPMorgan on Monday completed its acquisition of UBS's commodity business in Canada and its global agriculture business.

A spokesman for JPMorgan also declined to comment.

UBS was said to have put its U.S. wealth management operations up for sale last summer to capitalize on a market not yet hurt by the global financial turmoil. Executives at the Swiss bank were encouraged after Wachovia bought regional brokerage A.G. Edwards for $6.4 billion just months earlier.

AP

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

...and the hits just keep on coming.

[quote=YHWY]

WB cancelled the other production trips, not WFC.

[quote=Ferris Bueller] WB cancelled the other production trips, not WFC.[/quote]

…yes because of TARP $$$.   I see no difference here…

[quote=NCGNTO] [quote=Ferris Bueller] WB cancelled the other production trips, not WFC.[/quote] …yes because of TARP $$$.   I see no difference here…

Makes perfect sense, UBS is a shitty company, WS is a shitty company, combine them and you have one big giant turd.  You think your home office support is bad now, just wait.

WHO is buying WHO ???

Wells is buying UBS brokerage and will split them off with WS as an LLC. Name ?? Retention still comes from Wells

Wells is buying UBS brokerage and will split them off with WS as an LLC. Name ?? Retention still comes from Wells

Wells is buying UBS brokerage and will split them off with WS as an LLC. Name ?? Retention still comes from Wells

Shredder - ?? There has been no announcement of anything. What call were you on??

Feb 3, 2009 6:25 PM, By John Churchill

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Here’s a possible new twist in the changing financial services landscape: A report in the New York Post raises the possibility of a “joint venture” between the wealth management divisions of Wachovia Securities and UBS.

But a lot of questions would need answering before this one were to pan out.

The Post report says that UBS “has held preliminary talks with Wachovia Securities about forging a joint venture of the pair's North American wealth-management units.” It goes on to say it’s “unclear at what stage the discussions are in, or exactly what form a joint venture might take” and that “one source warned a deal might never materialize.”

So are senior executives just doing what they do, namely gauging market
opportunities? Or are these two firms truly looking to tie the knot?

Danny Sarch, a recruiter with Leitner Sarch Consultants in White Plains, NY, is skeptical that another mega merger is in the works, especially between UBS’ US Wealth Management unit and Wachovia Securities, Wachovia Corp’s retail brokerage arm. “It would be a very complex union, I don’t get it,” says Sarch. He points to the structural complexity of Wachovia Securities and the multiple platforms it offers brokers and investment advisors, either by direct employment or some level of affiliation. How would these independent and quasi-independent advisors fit into the new entity?

“Then there’s the AG Edwards brokers who are set to move on to the Wachovia platform imminently,” he says. That merger hasn’t exactly gone smoothly, according to advisors on both sides, and with closure just around the corner, are Wachovia executives really going to want to hazard another cultural mash-up?

There’s a significant disparity in the size of the average producer at the two firms as well, according to recruiters. If the UBS parent company is serious about a deal, says one disgruntled advisor—he is so disgruntled, in fact, that he has hoped for a sale for more than a year and even considered joining Merrill Lynch before it was bought—it would have to hold onto its eight Private Wealth Offices in the U.S.. With teams of advisors serving accounts with $10 million or more in assets, these private wealth offices are closer to the Swiss model at work in UBS’ international private banking units. “Otherwise, there’s way too large of a gap between the producers. There’s enough of one already that it would be awkward,” he says.

Of course, speculation about the sale of both firms has been ongoing for some time. UBS’ US Wealth Management has been the subject of sale rumors for more than a year as its international siblings have consistently outshined it. Consecutive quarterly losses and mortgage related writedowns (also suffered by all of its peers), the auction rate securities settlement and most recently its battle with the U.S. government over alleged tax evading American clients have all helped fuel the idea that the US unit was more trouble that it was worth. On the other hand, the U.S. wealth management division’s recent aggressive recruiting spree, which netted 200 advisors in the fourth quarter (with reported recruiting deals of 200-plus percent common) would suggest the division isn’t going anywhere.

Meanwhile, it’s unclear how such a deal would fit in with the earlier Wells Fargo-Wachovia merger, which closed on Jan. 1. Analysts say the strength of that deal was the fact that the combined banks would have a colossal footprint—Wachovia Securities, the wealth management arm of Wachovia, was a footnote, a bonus. But since the deal closed, observers have noted Wachovia Securities still hasn’t been renamed, nor has a retention package for Wachovia advisors been floated, a possible indication that it was on the block.

[quote=NCGNTO] [quote=Ferris Bueller] WB cancelled the other production trips, not WFC.[/quote] …yes because of TARP $$$.   I see no difference here…

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(Updates with new background on U.S. unit in 19th paragraph)

By Joe Bel Bruno

Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

NEW YORK (DOW JONES)--UBS AG (UBS) is shopping around its U.S. wealth management business to a number of suitors as part of a global repositioning of the beleaguered Swiss bank, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.

The Zurich-based bank has held talks with Morgan Stanley and Wachovia Securities about a potential deal late last year, the people said. UBS has also approached other big U.S. banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Bank of America Corp. (BAC) to gauge interest in a combination.

However, the Swiss bank has so far been unable to find a buyer willing to pay top dollar for the U.S. unit since a broad realignment of Wall Street that has shuttered Lehman Brothers and nearly put others out of business. UBS paid $11.5 billion to establish a position in North America through its acquisition of PaineWebber in 2000.

"They are reaching out to every American financial company that might be interested in building or expanding a brokerage," said one major London-based investor in UBS who has been briefed on the bank's strategy. "Things have shifted so much that they can't afford to not be engaged in some kind of talks."

UBS, hobbled by nearly $50 billion of credit-related losses in the past few years, has been trying to raise badly needed capital to stabilize its balance sheet. The company last August announced plans to reposition the bank, allowing its business units to operate more autonomously.

A spokesman for the bank declined to comment. However, more clarity about UBS's strategy might come when it posts earnings on Feb. 10.

The talks with Morgan Stanley were held in December, according to a person briefed on the discussions. However, Morgan Stanley didn't believe the meetings were "very serious" and they never included Chief Executive John Mack.

A few months later, Mack led Morgan Stanley into a $2.7 billion deal to acquire a 51% stake in Citigroup Inc.'s (C) Smith Barney brokerage unit. It will become the nation's largest brokerage.

Any deal for UBS also comes after brokerage Merrill Lynch & Co. was snapped up by Bank of America. The deals give Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and Bank of America Merrill Lynch some 20,000 brokers each, while UBS only has 8,000 based in the U.S.

Charles "Chip" Roame, managing principal of Tiburon Strategic Advisors, a financial-services research-and-consulting firm, said recent consolidation and banks' need to raise capital eliminate some likely suitors in the near term.

"To believe that Morgan Stanley right now would buy another brokerage force of 8,000 is naive. To believe Wells Fargo would buy UBS is also naive. They have to worry about TARP funding and other issues," Roame said.

Those deals would have forged a tie-up that created cost savings. But, he believes firms like JPMorgan are better positioned to make a deal if UBS needs to complete a transaction in the next six months.

JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon has said on more than one occasion that he would be interested in acquiring a brokerage, but that it wasn't a top priority. The bank is still in the midst of digesting its acquisitions of investment bank Bear Stearns and thrift Washington Mutual.

However, both JPMorgan and UBS have had dealings with each other in the past. JPMorgan on Monday completed its acquisition of UBS's commodity business in Canada and its global agriculture business.

A spokesman for JPMorgan also declined to comment.

UBS was said to have put its U.S. wealth management operations up for sale last summer to capitalize on a market not yet hurt by the global financial turmoil. Executives at the Swiss bank were encouraged after Wachovia bought regional brokerage A.G. Edwards for $6.4 billion just months earlier.

The company is the world's largest money manager for so-called "ultra high net worth" clients. However, the U.S. market has been a challenge for UBS in securing the same kind of wealthy customers as it has in Europe.

The U.S. wealth management unit also suffers from higher costs and slimmer margins. For instance, UBS has hired hundreds of brokers in the last few months as it sought to counter client and broker defections.

Mark Arena, a spokesman for UBS in New York, said the company is "paying market rate, and sometimes less, to top producing financial advisers." He said the company will continue to bring on new brokers as it takes advantage of the market's dislocation.

Adding key staff could also help to window dress the wealth management unit ahead of a potential sale.

A buyer would acquire the remains of a storied U.S. financial company. PaineWebber, founded in the 1880, weathered several financial crises that included the Great Depression to become a Wall Street fixture. The PaineWebber name was abandoned in 2003 when UBS rebranded the unit.

-By Joe Bel Bruno, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-4047; joe.belbruno@ dowjones.com

(Brett Philbin contributed to this story.)

UBS AG/Edwards