UBS Group (NYSE:UBS) Group CEO Sergio Ermotti said the bank made “very strong” progress in 2025 by staying close to clients through a complex environment, delivering year-over-year financial improvement, and advancing the integration of Credit Suisse, while also increasing capital returns to shareholders.
2025 results: growth, profitability, and capital returns
In a keynote fireside chat, Ermotti said UBS surpassed $7 trillion in invested assets, calling it a “remarkable achievement.” He added that results were “up substantially year on year,” and emphasized that UBS has moved “above cost of equity” on a core and underlying basis after what he described as a costly restructuring over the past couple of years.
On shareholder returns, Ermotti said UBS increased its dividend by 22% and completed $3 billion of share buybacks. He added that the bank is also investing for the future, including in people, capabilities, and artificial intelligence (AI).
Credit Suisse integration: milestones and remaining work
Ermotti said 2025 was a major year for integration execution. In Switzerland, UBS migrated 950,000 clients from the Credit Suisse platform to UBS’. He added that a recent weekend migration included 50,000 of “the most complex” clients, involving more than 500,000 different positions with derivatives.
He said UBS still needs to migrate the final 100,000 clients in March, after which it expects to shut down Credit Suisse data centers and IT systems. Ermotti framed this as enabling “a couple of billion dollars or more” in synergies.
He said UBS has achieved its cost savings targets, citing nearly $11 billion of cost savings since integration efforts began and the identification of an additional $500 million.
Client positioning and market backdrop
Asked about volatility and uncertainty, Ermotti said client asset allocation remains “broadly speaking, quite constructive,” with no major shift across asset classes or geographies. He noted that, at the margin, cash and liquidity have moved into commodities and that there was “a big rally in emerging markets,” but he did not see major sell-offs.
He said recent weeks have brought increased interest in diversification and hedging, as well as some effort to reduce leverage and prepare cash for reinvestment if markets drop. Ermotti added he finds it difficult to identify any asset class that appears cheap, and suggested investors feel similarly.
Strategy into 2026: integration completion, operating model, and AI
Ermotti said UBS’ priority is to deliver on its 2026 targets, starting with completing the “final mile” of integration. He described the effort as complex and warned against complacency, especially after the highly complex migrations already completed.
He said that with integration nearly finished, UBS will be able to optimize its operating model more meaningfully. He highlighted a focus on enhancing the “One Bank” approach in the back end and improving efficiency and effectiveness. Ermotti also said UBS is preparing for the future through AI investment, process redesign, and risk management in dynamic environments.
He said UBS is stronger today than it was pre-acquisition, citing geographic footprint, product capabilities, and people, and argued that secular trends such as wealth creation and demographic and societal shifts support the firm’s global franchise.
U.S. strategy, bank charter, and regulation in Switzerland
On the U.S., Ermotti described a “medium long-term journey” focused on improving profitability and growth. He said UBS has been profitable in the U.S. over the last 10 years, but “not profitable enough” relative to its opportunities, and noted that the firm’s U.S. banking platform is not as comprehensive as some peers, limiting its ability to spread fixed platform costs across businesses.
He said UBS manages $2.3 trillion to $2.4 trillion of assets in the U.S., and reported improving lending penetration in each of the last seven quarters, though still below potential. Ermotti said UBS received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a national bank charter, which he expects will support increased deposit gathering and net interest income (NII) over the next couple of years. He called NII penetration versus peers “probably a half,” and described deposit and checking capabilities as a key opportunity.
Ermotti also discussed advisor-related flows and said UBS had anticipated headwinds in U.S. net new assets as it prioritized profitability and efficiency, including improving “revenues on risk-weighted assets” from about 7%+ to 10% over 24 months. He said UBS reworked parts of its compensation grid for certain advisors to better align pay with business growth and profitability, acknowledging it was “not very popular.” He said the firm expects positive momentum in net new assets growth in the second half of the year and targets more than $200 billion in net new assets growth by 2028, with the U.S. playing an important role.
On capital markets activity, Ermotti said UBS is seeing strong momentum in the pipeline from corporates, sponsors, and institutional clients, but warned that geopolitical and macro uncertainty could still create “stop and goes” in transaction windows, particularly in strategic M&A.
Addressing scale in investment banking, Ermotti reiterated UBS’ longstanding decision not to be a “one-stop shop” investment bank. He said UBS aims to be highly competitive in selected areas—citing equities, research, prime brokerage, FX, precious metals, and parts of capital markets—and noted that UBS has gained market share in recent years in areas where it is investing.
In alternatives, Ermotti said UBS merged internal alternatives capabilities across wealth management and asset management to create what he called the fifth largest LP in the industry, with $330 billion in assets. He said UBS’ alternatives allocation is about 5% versus what he described as an “ideal” longer-term allocation around 10%, while cautioning that some areas of alternatives—particularly private credit—have not yet been fully tested through a prolonged recessionary credit cycle. He emphasized suitability as a key risk, saying the bank must ensure clients fully understand these investments.
On AI, Ermotti said he expects most near-term value for UBS over the next three to five years to come from back-end process efficiencies, estimating “80%” of the value in that period will be in operations rather than client-facing tools. He said efficiency gains will largely benefit clients through a competitive market dynamic, and warned that changes from AI could be more profound than expected even if adoption is slower than some forecasts.
Finally, Ermotti addressed Switzerland’s evolving “too-big-to-fail” reform discussion, describing the country’s response to the Credit Suisse crisis as emotional and noting that UBS already has what he called the highest minimum capital requirements among global systemically important banks. He said the bank views current proposals “as displayed” as unacceptable because they would make UBS uncompetitive, and said UBS is focused on influencing the debate with facts. While acknowledging uncertainty, he said UBS is not currently restraining growth or capital returns due to the debate, but argued the long-term issue is competitiveness and return on capital under any new capital framework. Asked about re-domiciliation, Ermotti said it is not a current focus, and that UBS prefers to remain a global bank based in Switzerland while the regulatory process plays out.
About UBS Group (NYSE:UBS)
UBS Group AG is a Swiss multinational financial services firm that provides a broad range of banking and capital markets services to private, institutional and corporate clients. Headquartered in Zurich, UBS operates as a universal bank with a primary focus on wealth management, asset management, investment banking and retail and commercial banking in Switzerland. The firm serves high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals, pension funds, corporations and institutional investors through a global network of offices.
Key business activities include global wealth management—offering financial planning, investment advisory, discretionary portfolio management and custody services—alongside asset management products for institutional and retail investors.
