Initiatives & Achievements

Integrated IT infrastructure unit successfully launched

On 1 April 2004 our integrated IT infrastructure unit (ITI) covering most IT infrastructure functions across the firm, started to operate as planned. With its launch, approximately 2,350 employees were relocated from the Business Groups to the centralized ITI unit, housed within our Corporate Functions. The transition was smooth, without any disruptions to UBS’s operations. The new unit has set its focus on serving our businesses in a client-driven and cost-efficient way, as well as building towards a consistent technical architecture.

ITI charges the businesses for its services through internal Service Level Agreements (SLAs). This has led to a reclassification of some of the business units’ cost lines, as most IT infrastructure services were previously provided internally, and therefore reported as direct costs (personnel expenses, G&A expenses and depreciation). To further enhance transparency of these charges, we now report them on a separate line called “services to / from other business units”. This new line is a net figure consisting of all inter-business services, the majority of which relate to ITI.

Another year of top Euromoney honors

This year, we again won a series of key Euromoney Awards for Excellence, with the magazine naming us the “Best Investment Bank”, “Best Global Private Bank” and “Best Equity House”. Euromoney said our successful penetration of the key US market has boosted our global stature and put us in a position to work on high-profile deals in M&A, equity underwriting and debt capital markets.

“UBS has achieved what once seemed impossible for any European investment bank: it has broken into the front rank in the US market, source of roughly half the global investment banking fee pool,” Euromoney said.

In giving us the wealth management award, the magazine said we retained our title (won in the inaugural survey in January) because of our extensive client franchise.

“A global presence in wealth management has become a necessity for those wishing to capture the growing market in Asia and onshore Europe, and no institution has managed to broaden its reach quite like UBS,” Euromoney wrote.

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