UBS Profit May Trail U.S. Peers on Litigation Reserves, Trading
- European banks still weighed down by misconduct charges
- Last year played against UBS’s ‘idiosyncrasies,’ Orcel said
This article is for subscribers only.
UBS Group AG may this week report earnings that trailed U.S. peers as litigation charges continue to weigh on Europe’s lenders and their retreat from debt trading limits the boost from higher interest rates.
Switzerland’s largest bank will probably report a 21 percent increase in pretax profit in the fourth quarter to 282 million francs ($282 million), according to George Karamanos, a London-based analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. That compares with a 64 percent average gain reported this month by five Wall Street peers including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which saw pretax profit spike 217 percent. UBS’s own survey of 22 analysts is for an even lower increase of 6.4 percent.