By Ariane Luthi<\/p>\n
ZURICH, April 29 (Reuters) – Swiss bank UBS reported better-than-expected first-quarter net profit on Wednesday, helped by record trading revenue amid market turbulence triggered by the Iran war.<\/p>\n
Days after Switzerland published \u200ca banking bill that could require it to find an extra $20 billion in core capital, UBS \u200cposted net profit of $3.0 billion in the first quarter of 2026, up 80% year-on-year and beating an average estimate of $2.3 billion in a company-provided \u200bpoll of analysts.<\/p>\n
Revenue in the UBS investment banking division jumped 27% year-on-year, boosted by an all-time high in its trading arm, with record income in the bank’s equities and foreign exchange, rates and credit businesses.<\/p>\n
Underlying revenue in the investment bank’s M&A and IPO advisory section was also up, helped by a standout quarter in equity capital markets, the bank said.<\/p>\n
In \u200cglobal wealth management, underlying transaction-based income rose \u206017%. The division attracted net new assets of $37 billion with positive flows across all regions.<\/p>\n
Inflows of $5.3 billion in the Americas marked a turnaround after wealth outflows in this key growth \u2060market clouded a profit jump in the previous quarter.<\/p>\n
Markets have remained broadly resilient so far in the second quarter, reflecting expectations that a durable diplomatic solution to the Iran war is achievable, UBS said in a statement.<\/p>\n
However, risks are elevated and \u200bconditions \u200bcould change quickly, which may affect client sentiment, it added.<\/p>\n
‘ENCOURAGING \u200bSET OF RESULTS’ – CITI ANALYSTS<\/p>\n
UBS reasserted its intention \u200cto repurchase at least $3 billion of shares in 2026, saying it was on track to do so by the end of July and aimed to do more by year-end, depending on visibility of parliamentary deliberations on capital rules.<\/p>\n
“Overall an encouraging set of results, albeit we expect focus will once again be on the Swiss capital proposals and what this means for future buybacks,” Citi analysts said in a note.<\/p>\n
A stricter Swiss banking bill aims to prevent \u200ca repeat of the traumatic collapse of Credit Suisse, which UBS \u200bacquired in a state-engineered emergency takeover in 2023.<\/p>\n
The Swiss government last \u200bweek granted UBS concessions but stuck to its \u200bkey demand that the bank fully capitalise its foreign units, an item on which parliament \u200cis the final arbiter.<\/p>\n
UBS will continue to engage \u200bconstructively on Swiss capital rules, \u200bCEO Sergio Ermotti said. “These developments do not, and will not, change who we are as a firm.”<\/p>\n
The bank is on track to complete integration of Credit Suisse by year-end, unlocking potential for further growth and \u200befficiency gains, UBS said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ariane Luthi ZURICH, April 29 (Reuters) – Swiss bank UBS reported better-than-expected first-quarter net profit on Wednesday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[18582,1548,26864,2464,10241,3188,32810,2129,1085,19429,223,32809],"class_list":{"0":"post-59068","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ubs","8":"tag-capital-rules","9":"tag-credit-suisse","10":"tag-equity-capital-markets","11":"tag-global-wealth-management","12":"tag-investment-bank","13":"tag-iran","14":"tag-market-turbulence","15":"tag-net-profit","16":"tag-swiss-bank","17":"tag-swiss-capital","18":"tag-ubs","19":"tag-ubs-investment-banking"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116505198207669550","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}