UBS Loss Leaves Gruebel Contemplating Smaller Investment Bank

“We do know what we’re doing,” UBS AG Chief Executive Officer Oswald Gruebel told investors last year about plans to step up risk-taking to boost profit. “Risk is our business.”

Ten months later, Switzerland’s biggest bank revealed a $2.3 billion loss from what it called “unauthorized trading.” Kweku Adoboli, a 31-year-old trader at the company, appeared in court in London yesterday on charges of fraud and false accounting. Now UBS is the subject of probes by U.K. and Swiss regulators and is facing calls by investors and politicians to scale back its investment bank.