Investment Bank

UBS to acquire full ownership of UBS Bunting Limited

On 19 January, UBS announced an offer to acquire the remaining ownership interests in its Canadian institutional securities subsidiary, UBS Bunting Limited.

The purchase price will consist of a combination of cash and UBS stock for approximately CHF 157 million plus up to an additional CHF 32 million depending on the performance of the acquired business post-closing in 2006 and 2007.

The transaction is expected to close during the first quarter of 2006, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals. UBS currently owns a 50% stake in UBS Bunting Limited, and the balance is held by employees of UBS Bunting Limited’s operating subsidiary, UBS Securities Canada Inc.

Corporate clients

According to data from Dealogic, we ranked eighth in terms of our share of the global fee pool at the end of fourth quarter 2005 with a full-year market share of 5.0%. In third quarter 2005, our market share was 4.9%, although we ranked seventh. A year earlier, we were ranked sixth with a market share of 5.1%. From that time, the global fee pool has grown by 14%. In fourth quarter, we received Global Finance magazine’s award for Best M&A Deal for our work on Procter & Gamble’s acquisition of Gillette. We were also named Best Investment Bank in both the consumer sector and Switzerland. In Bloomberg’s rankings of UK corporate brokers, UBS was placed second, with 32 corporate broking clients in the FTSE 100.

Institutional clients

We maintained our first place in the global ranking for secondary equity cash commissions for the fourteenth consecutive quarter, according to data from a leading industry survey.

Our equities and fixed income businesses received a number of prestigious awards in fourth quarter. In addition to the awards above, Global Finance magazine presented us with seven further awards including Best Bank for Risk Management and Best Online FX Trading System. We were ranked first in Asiamoney’s 2005 broker poll, which is based on the combined votes of the long-only funds and hedge funds. For the third year running, we were the top-rated bank in FX, according to FX Week’s annual client survey of the market.

In fourth quarter, we also made two strategic steps in our equities business. In November 2005, we announced the acquisition of Prediction Company LLC, which specializes in the development of advanced financial engineering and trading software. The move reflects the emphasis we put on technology in continuing to develop our equities business. In the fourth quarter, we also launched a new technology platform for our prime brokerage clients. This will allow us to provide clients with a single place to retrieve their prime brokerage synthetic and cash information, giving UBS a highly competitive product in this field.