Comment: The Swiss wealthy lose patience with UBS
Multinationals that begin to misplace the support of their home customers run the risk of losing their way in international markets in the years ahead as dissatisfaction spreads.
Worryingly, UBS looks to be losing some of its wealthy clients in Switzerland – and this might be spreading abroad. Results released today show the Swiss rich withdrew net funds worth SFr2.5bn during the first three months of the year.
That number confirms the trend portrayed by Lipper research on the Swiss funds market released last month. Lipper said UBS saw an outflow of SFr7.7bn from its entire funds business – institutional, retail and private clients – in the first quarter of 2008.
UBS still controls the biggest slice of the Swiss funds market – around 28%, according to Lipper. But its dominance is shrinking. Three years ago, Switzerland’s largest bank controlled more than 39%. In the same period, Credit Suisse lost less than 1% of their share of the same market.
These numbers show Swiss investors are losing their patience with UBS, which of course has been amplified by the current problems for the investment bank.
But the even more worrying concern for UBS is that this trend might be beginning to spread to other countries.
Total net new money flows into the bank’s non-Swiss wealth management market grew by SFr8.1bn in the first quarter.
Compare that to the SFr40.3bn of net new money flows received for the same wealth businesses in first quarter of 2007 and there is a big difference for the bank’s wealth advisors to get to grips with.
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
reddit
StumbleUpon