Recently, UBS Group's plan to acquire Credit Suisse has made new progress。

On April 18, UBS said it would use some of the shares repurchased over the past year to finance its acquisition of Credit Suisse after Swiss regulators approved changes to the group's buyback program.。It is reported that UBS's share repurchase program began in March 2022.。To date, the group has repurchased 2.98.5 billion shares, equivalent to 8.47%。

UBS Chairman Colm Kelleher has said that for every 22 shares held by Credit Suisse shareholders.48 shares of Credit Suisse stock, you get 1 share of UBS stock, if under the original plan, the company needs about 1..7.8 billion shares of its own company to buy Credit Suisse。However, after the Swiss Takeover Commission approved a revision of the buyback program, UBS could move forward with the acquisition process without issuing new shares and instead switch to shares it had already repurchased, and those repurchases would not be cancelled。

The move undoubtedly eased the financial pressure on UBS's acquisition and helped speed up the acquisition process。However, just as the plan was speeding up, there were some insecure voices from within Credit Suisse。

On April 19, it was reported that as the acquisition progressed, more and more employees of Credit Suisse began to worry about their prospects.。While UBS has been negotiating with Credit Suisse over the past few weeks on the employment of its employees after a future acquisition and has promised to accelerate the excavation of potential jobs, the combined UBS group will reportedly have up to 120,000 employees, at least a third of whom will be affected by the layoffs.。

In the face of such pressure, Credit Suisse employees have also found their own way out。According to foreign media reports, since the end of March, headhunters around the world have received a large number of inquiries from Credit Suisse employees, mainly in Singapore, London and New York.

Those who are likely to be laid off are already anxious, and those who remain will not be better off, the news further noted that only a small percentage of senior bankers with a strong customer base will be retained in the ranks of their employees.。

Why Big Layoffs？In addition to the redundancy and difficulty of staffing after the UBS acquisition, cultural differences between the two also account for part of the reason.。In terms of business, UBS is relatively conservative, while Credit Suisse is relatively aggressive.。In the lending business, for example, UBS claims that it will not provide lending services to potential customers, and Credit Suisse may do so in order to convert potential customers。According to sources, UBS believes that Credit Suisse's business in recent years has been "relatively risky."。

In the midst of the storm, Credit Suisse's investment banking division is expected to become a "hard hit."。

At the time, with the Swiss government brokering the takeover, Kelleher made it clearsaid he would scale back Credit Suisse's investment banking business after the acquisition, as the unit has been losing money in recent years.。"Let me be very specific, UBS intends to scale back Credit Suisse's investment banking business and align it with our conservative risk culture.。"Kellehersaid at a press conference。This means that previous hopes that Credit Suisse would break up First Boston Bank have been completely dashed.。

For now, UBS has said again that it will reduce the size of Credit Suisse's investment banking division and close most of its operations, only considering retaining Credit Suisse's private banking unit in India in order to pave the way for its return to the Indian market.。

In the U.S., Credit Suisse had previously sought to revive its investment banking business on Wall Street, specifically classifying the investment banking department as an independent division and hiring Michael Klein, a senior Wall Street banker, to take care of it.。The latter is a Wall Street legend who made the most of Citi's successful acquisition of Schroeder Group's investment banking business in 2000.。Things are different, and it has been reported that since the acquisition process, UBS is studying how to terminate its contract with the lowest cost。

In addition, UBS plans to "baptize" the division's corporate culture, which could affect its future business model.。Kelleher previously said that the culture of some of Credit Suisse's departments is not satisfactory, will start with the investment banking department, gradually filtered to ensure that it does not pollute the Group's corporate ecology.。In terms of personnel transfers, according to sources, as part of the business restructuring, UBS wants to move people within Credit Suisse, and those bankers in the investment banking department who are not performing well will be replaced by those who are performing well.。

UBS is speeding up its acquisition process, hoping to complete it all by the end of April。