BERN, June 2 (Reuters) – UBS ( UBSG.S ) Chief Executive Sergio Ermotti warned on Friday of tough decisions about job cuts following the takeover of Credit Suisse ( CSGN.S ), saying he expected it to be formal in the coming days.
“We cannot create, short-term, job opportunities for everyone. Synergies are part of the story,” Ermotti said at an event organized by the Asset Management Association Switzerland in Bern.
“We need to seriously look at the cost base of standalone and integrated organizations and create a sustainable result,” he added. “It’s going to hurt.”
Switzerland’s no. 1 bank, which agreed in March to take over its smaller Swiss rival as part of a rescue arranged by Swiss authorities, said it intended to close the deal quickly.
“Hopefully in the next few days it will be done,” Ermotti said Friday. “We are finishing the last few miles … we have more than 170 approvals from regulators.”
Ermotti, who led UBS from 2011 to 2020, returned as CEO in April to oversee the biggest banking deal since the global financial crisis.
Although he emphasized that it was a takeover and not a merger, Ermotti said Credit Suisse has a lot of good people and talent, suggesting that its executives could play a bigger role in the combined group than may be indicated by the first leadership team announced last month. That management change just saw Credit Suisse CEO Ulrich Koerner join top management.
“We will have a more equal distribution of jobs ..than I did myself,” he said. “When the dust settles …the best thing for our clients and shareholders and our people is to have the best people in the jobs.”
He also insisted that the new combined entity, which would have a balance sheet of $1.6 trillion – roughly double the size of Switzerland’s annual economic output – would not be too big for Switzerland.
Switzerland’s Social Democratic Party has made proposals to shrink UBS’s assets after it took over Credit Suisse to reduce the risk of another costly state-backed rescue.
“I don’t think we’re too big for Switzerland,” Ermotti said, adding that in banking “size matters.”
Reporting by John Revil Editing by Tomasz Janowski
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