After a week of chaos at Credit Suisse which ultimately led to the firm’s merger with UBS, the embattled Swiss bank is not out of the headlines just yet. Speaking to the Tages-Anzeiger, a high-ranking figure at UBS has confirmed that around 30.000 people working at the two companies will lose their jobs in the coming years.

UBS forced into major restructuring after Credit Suisse merger

Speaking to the newspaper, UBS explained that the fallout around the recent merger with Credit Suisse will force them into a major restructuring of their business. As a result of the merger, UBS has to accommodate the 50.000 people that work at Credit Suisse around the world. The firm now also possesses a portfolio of over 1,5 trillion dollars and is the largest stakeholder in the Swiss housing market.

A high-ranking UBS manager told the Tages-Anzeiger that the scale of the task at hand will be enormous and that they would need to look carefully at which positions fit into their company structure, which can be taken up by other roles, and any jobs that can be done away with completely. They said that in total, between 20 and 30 percent of jobs would be cut, both worldwide and in Switzerland.

Up to 11.000 people to be made redundant in Switzerland

In all, the firm expects that between 24.800 and 36.000 jobs will be lost at UBS-Credit Suisse worldwide, while between 7.400 and 11.100 people will be made redundant in Switzerland. This is likely on top of previous plans to slash the Credit Suisse workforce in 2022. 

Questions remain as to where and when these cuts will be made. However, the Tages-Anzeiger predicted that most will be related to closing bank branches across Swiss cities and cantons and reforming the operations of UBS and Credit Suisse within the city of Zurich - specifically their offices in Paradeplatz.

There also remains the matter of the Credit Suisse brand itself, with previous reporting by Blick implying that the brand will likely remain a presence on the high street. According to the Tages-Anzeiger, Credit Suisse will remain a brand for at least the next three to four years, before it disappears for good.

UBS-Credit Suisse merger to be investigated

The news of imminent redundancies comes amid new reports that the Swiss Office of the Attorney General in Bern will be investigating the UBS-Credit Suisse merger. The statement, reported by The Financial Times, notes that “numerous aspects of events around Credit Suisse” needed to be investigated so that they could “identify any crimes that could fall within the competence of the [prosecutor].”

Speaking to Swissinfo, criminal law and criminology professor at the University of Basel Mark Pieth said that “it’s astonishing that the prosecutor would comment,” but the rescue “is so out of the ordinary that they had to say something.” Specifically, he predicted that the prosecutor will be looking at breaches of secrecy provisions by officials.

Thumb image: Shutterstock.com / MOZCO Mateusz Szymanski