UBS: feel the ubside

A small capital raising for UBS. A giant leap for confidence. The Swiss bank’s SFr3.8bn share sale late on June 25 was remarkable for its lack of drama. It was straight equity, not some fancy cocktail of equity-linked funny money. The stock was placed at a mere 7% discount to the last market price. And Swiss taxpayers were conspicuously absent. The issue was snapped up by a handful of UBS’s existing institutional shareholders. The placing, which follows a successful disposal of Barclays’ shares...