UBS Group does not plan to make the large-scale job cuts seen at its global peers as the business of making investments for wealthy clients continues to grow robustly, said its chief executive officer (CEO), Ralph Hamers.

“We are not in retrenchment mode,” he said at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday (Jan 17). “We are hiring for what we call critical jobs. In the Asia-Pacific, in the Middle East, we are hiring, absolutely, because we have the momentum.” 

With Europe and the US flirting with recession, and after a year of weak dealmaking, firms including Goldman Sachs Group and BNY Mellon are cutting thousands of jobs as they focus on trimming costs. 

Hamers’ optimism underscored the divergence in outlook for global growth, with the Middle East in particular enjoying an energy-related cash windfall. 

“We are really bucking the trend when it comes to asset management and wealth management,” he said. Bank of America has also said that it planned to increase the number of advisers in wealth management after the business set records. 

Optimism is also rebounding in Asia, as China abruptly called an end to its strict pursuit of zero-Covid cases and partially reopened its borders to foreign travellers. 

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Globally, merger and acquisition deals shrank 33 per cent last year, with Asian dealmaking sliding 22 per cent, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.

Last year, UBS backed away from acquiring robo-adviser Wealthfront, a deal that was meant to widen its reach to the lower rungs of the wealthy there. Instead, the Swiss lender said it would focus on its traditional very-high-net-worth customer base.

The reversal of the Wealthfront deal and recalibration of the bank’s US strategy were blows to Hamers, who staked the early part of his term as CEO on effecting a digital-first wealth-management approach.

The lender’s US strategy was in flux after long-time Americas chief Tom Naratil retired, leaving Iqbal Khan to take on global leadership of the wealth management business. 

Hamers said on Tuesday that his strategy has been clear since he became CEO, with the US forming one part of a “barbell” of growth areas. The other is Asia. 

“We will focus on Asia as that’s where entrepreneurial growth is, including China,” he said. “And we will focus on the US, because that’s where entrepreneurial wealth growth is as well. There is a ‘two-poles’ strategy in terms of growth support.”

He added that in the US, the bank was committed to increasing the scale of its business there.

“We need to develop our banking product offerings as well, on both loan and deposit sides,” he said. “And we need to invest in (digitalisation) in order to scale, and for clients to access the information themselves. We’re launching some of these products as we speak.” BLOOMBERG