UBS staff spooked in Singapore, but staying put

Simon Mortlock

Staff at UBS in Singapore are sprucing up their CVs as job-cut rumours start to spread. One recruiter, who asked not to be named, says a few UBS bankers have already been in touch to discuss their careers.

“I’ve definitely seen more résumés coming across my desk this month. There are certainly interesting things going on at UBS. People there seem to be spooked,” he adds.

The job-loss jitters follow UBS’s announcement earlier this month of US$19bn of new asset writedowns, and the departure of chairman Marcel Ospel.

But at this stage employees are only talking to recruiters, not walking out to join rival banks. “I haven’t seen any actual hirings of UBS people yet. It’s all rumour and speculation at the moment. They want to keep their options open,” says the recruiter.

Another Singapore-based search consultant, who also preferred to remain anonymous, agrees UBS workers are nervous: “From people I know there, there’s a lot of talk about what’s going on, but that’s to be expected when you’ve just lost your CEO and you’ve just lost a lot of money. They naturally feel uncomfortable.”

Although UBS is one of the top-ranked banks in Asia, other firms do not seem to be targeting its talent. Both headhunters say competitors have not approached them about pre-emptive poaching of UBS staff.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

US Quake Test Goes “Horribly Wrong”, Leaves 500,000 Dead In Haiti

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers A grim report prepared by the Russian Northern Fleet for Prime Minister Putin is stating today that the catastrophic earthquake that has devastated the Island of Haiti was the ‘clear result’ of a United States Navy test of one of its ‘earthquake weapons’ planned to be used by the Americans upon the Persian Nation of Iran but had gone ‘horribly wrong’. The Northern Fleet has been monitoring US Naval movements and activities in the Caribbean since 2008 when the Americans announced their intention to re-establish their Forth Fleet that had been disbanded in 1950, and which was responded to by the Motherland when later that year a Russian flotilla led by nuclear powered cruiser Peter the Great began their first exercises in this region since the ending of the Cold War. Though virtually unknown to the American people, the use, and perfection, of earthquake weapon technology has a decade’s long history that began with the former Sov
Read more

I'm an accountant, I hate my job, but seriously, I wouldn’t know what else to do

I was born to be a lot of things, but being an accountant isn't one of them. In my heart of hearts I have always known this, but for some stupid subconscious reason, I have always ignored it. Why? Well...um...err...I didn’t know what else to do. How many people faced with the same predicament of deciding on a profession upon graduating used “not really knowing what to do” as their guiding compass? Blink. Ten years have passed and you’re left wondering, how did I get here? In this cubicle? Doing something I cannot stand (and I’m not even honestly good at), with people I quite frankly don’t really care about? For me that was accounting, a profession that conjures numerous clichés, such as boring, bean counting, personality not needed, number crunching etc etc. These have now evolved and have been replaced by repetition, reconciliations, long hours, fudging figures, high turnover, Enron and even more reconciliations. R-E-S-P-E-C-T But please don’t get me wrong, I have the utmost respe
Read more

Have We Reached a Top?

By James Kostohryz It's never been my position that the flow of fundamental news would turn from positive to negative overnight and in a total fashion. The world simply doesn't work that way. When I terminated my core long position a couple of weeks ago for reasons explained in�Ten Reasons the Countertrend Rally May Be Over,�I outlined a series of factors I believe may manifest in the later half of 2009 and the first half of 2010. Indeed, most of these factors will be more back-end loaded, as negative factors tend to build on one another and gain momentum in time through the medium of psychology and social mood. It's my view that the flow of economically relevant events�-- and perceptions of these events --are in the early stages of a transition. In this case, a transition means the flow of relatively good news will tend to wane somewhat while there's an uptick in relatively bad news. This is what one would expect at a top. However, it's to be expected that during t
Read more