ZURICH (AFP) – Swiss banking giant UBS said yesterday it would hand shareholders up to USD1 billion in share buybacks as it posted a smaller-than-expected quarterly loss stemming from the costs of absorbing fallen rival Credit Suisse.
Presenting its fourth-quarter and full-year earnings, the bank reported a net loss of USD279 million in the final three months of 2023 – far less than the nearly USD500 million analysts had been bracing for.
The result followed a bigger, USD785 million loss in the third quarter.
For the full year, UBS bagged a net profit of USD29 billion in 2023.
Much of the gain stemmed from the difference between the value of the assets obtained in the acquisition of Credit Suisse and the discount price of USD3.25 billion it paid to buy then Switzerland’s second biggest bank, which was on the verge of bankruptcy.
UBS chief Sergio Ermotti hailed the group’s position nearly a year after it was strong-armed by Swiss authorities into a takeover aimed at averting a wider financial crisis.
“2023 was a defining year in UBS’s history with the acquisition of Credit Suisse,” Ermotti said in the earnings statement.
“Thanks to the exceptional efforts of all of our colleagues, we stabilised the franchise and have made tremendous progress in the integration.”
UBS boasted that it had already raked in USD4 billion in cost savings last year across the combined banks, adding that it now expects savings to swell to USD13 billion by 2026, up from the USD10 billion forecast previously.
