UBS reaches profit, consolidates recovery

09 Feb, 2011

Swiss bank UBS on Tuesday posted a largely expected annual profit in 2010 for the first time since the financial crisis, with full year net income of 7.2 billion Swiss francs (5.5 billion euros).
The result compared with a loss of 2.7 billion francs a year earlier as Switzerland's flagship banking group symbolically shrugged off three successive years of deep losses with five consecutive quarters of positive results.
"While we made substantial progress in 2010, we are fully aware that we have to continue to improve our results," the architect of the banks' recovery, chief executive Oswald Gruebel, said in a statement. During the fourth quarter, attributable profit reached 1.1 billion francs, compared to 818 million francs in the previous quarter.
The results were largely in line with analysts' expectations.
UBS last posted an annual net profit, of 12.6 billion francs, in 2006 before it was swept into the US subprime crisis, prompting a state rescue plan to shore it up as it suffered a record loss in 2008 of more than 21 billion francs.
On Tuesday, the bank said it had further bolstered its Bank for International Settlements core tier one capital ratio - a measure of its financial underpinnings - to 15.3 percent.
UBS also marked a recovery in customer confidence after unsettled clients deserted the bank during the crisis years, reporting "stabilised" flows of net new money in the fourth quarter of 7.1 billion francs.

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