UBS's defining moves.
The defining strategic moves at UBS — each one explained and grounded in the record.
The Counterfactual · Decision Forks
UBS Booked $27.7 Billion in Profit on a Deal It Was Pressured Into. The Bill Just Arrived.
UBS's 2023 windfall from absorbing Credit Suisse looks like the deal of the decade — but $27.7B of it was an accounting gain, not earnings. And in October 2025 a Swiss court ruled the AT1 wipeout that made the math work was unlawful.
8 min
The Turnaround · Decision Forks
UBS Didn't Save Itself. The Swiss State Bought It Time, and a Second Disaster Forced the Real Fix.
UBS wrote down $50 billion, took a CHF 6 billion state injection, and dumped up to $60 billion of toxic assets on the central bank. The comeback story credits one CEO. It took a bailout, a recovering market, and a $2.3 billion rogue trader to actually change the bank.
8 min
The Turnaround · Decision Forks
UBS Didn't Choose Wealth Management. It Got Pushed Into the Lifeboat.
UBS is celebrated for pivoting from trading to wealth management. But the decisive 2012 move came 11 months into a new CEO's tenure, after a CHF 6 billion rescue and a $2.3 billion rogue trade — and it cut 10,000 jobs because the rules made fixed income unprofitable.
7 min
The Crisis Response · Decision Forks
UBS Didn't Survive 2008. Switzerland Decided It Would.
UBS is remembered as the bank resilient enough to weather the crisis. It wasn't. It lost more than $45 billion, its leadership was already gone, and only a sovereign rescue kept it alive — a rescue Swiss officials had been quietly planning since March 2008.
8 min