Rocky ride

UBS may have turned a corner. After a string of quarterly losses totalling some SFr25bn, the Swiss bank expects to report a “small profit” in the three months to September 30. Emboldened by his overhaul of the group’s governance and management over the past five months, Chairman Peter Kurer also pledged on October 2 to have UBS back in the black for the full year 2009. But while UBS was busy reforming itself, a tectonic shift occurred in the banking world. The all-important private bank clients ...