UBS May Post Fourth-Quarter Loss on Reorganization, Libor Fine

UBS AG (UBSN), Switzerland’s biggest bank, will probably report a fourth-quarter loss after booking a fine for trying to rig global interest rates and a charge for reorganization.

The Zurich-based company may post a net loss of 2.16 billion Swiss francs ($2.37 billion), compared with a profit of 319 million francs a year earlier, according to the average estimate of 12 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The estimates ranged from a loss of 2.31 billion francs to a loss of 2.07 billion francs.

UBS was fined about 1.4 billion francs in December by the U.S., U.K. and Swiss regulators for trying to rig global interest rates. The bank said at the time that it expects to report a fourth-quarter loss of between 2 billion francs and 2.5 billion francs. The company also said in October that it would be booking reorganization costs of about 500 million francs in the fourth quarter, after announcing that it would shrink its debt-trading unit and fire 10,000 employees over three years.

UBS is scheduled to publish earnings tomorrow before the market opens. The following is a table of fourth-quarter mean estimates of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, as well as the year-earlier and third-quarter results. The last column shows how many analysts contributed figures. The numbers are in millions of francs, unless stated otherwise, and losses are in parentheses.

                           Q4 2012   Q4 2011   Q3 2012   No. of
                           Expected  Reported  Reported Analysts
Net interest income
before loan-loss provisions  1,496    1,745     1,531        6
Loan-loss provisions            59       14       129       10
Fee and commission income    4,069    3,560     3,919        5
Trading income                 591      443       779        5
Total revenue before risk
provisions                   6,239    5,876     6,417       11
Personnel costs              4,097    3,501     3,789        5
Total operating costs        7,350    5,381     8,803        9
Pretax profit               (2,234)     481    (2,516)      13
Net income                  (2,161)     319    (2,172)      12


DIVISIONS

                           Q4 2012   Q4 2011   Q3 2012   No. of
                           Expected  Reported  Reported Analysts
Investment Bank:
Total revenue                1,704    2,019     2,274        5
Operating costs              2,191    1,901     5,147        5
Pretax profit                 (751)      99    (2,870)      10

Wealth Management:
Total revenue                1,833    1,770     1,789        5
Operating costs              1,206      966     1,189        5
Pretax profit                  629      803       600       10
Net new assets (Bln)           6.8      6.7       7.7        5

Retail & Corporate:
Total revenue                  945      918       946        5
Operating costs                518      361       523        5
Pretax profit                  424      575       409       10

                           Q4 2012   Q4 2011   Q3 2012   No. of
                           Expected  Reported  Reported Analysts

Wealth Management Americas:
Total revenue                1,557    1,425     1,559        5
Operating costs              1,338    1,235     1,342        5
Pretax profit                  211      190       219       10
Net new assets (Bln)           3.3      4.2       4.6        5

Global Asset Management:
Total revenue                  473      478       468        5
Operating costs                346      322       344        5
Pretax profit                  137      156       124       10

To contact the reporter on this story: Elena Logutenkova in Zurich at elogutenkova@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Frank Connelly at fconnelly@bloomberg.net