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UBS completes equity funding in PaineWebber purchase

The UBS says it has essentially finished integrating PaineWebber Keystone Archive

The UBS financial services group says it has completed equity funding for its $11.8 billion (SFr20.8 billion) takeover of United States investment bank PaineWebber.

A statement from UBS on Friday said there was no further requirement to issue shares, adding that the integration of PaineWebber had proceeded very smoothly and was now essentially complete.

Final IT and operational changes are to be implemented in early February.

UBS chose to make an initial issuance of 12 million new ordinary shares and to re-issue seven million shares held in Treasury, when the merger was completed last November. The remaining 21.6 million ordinary shares needed for the merger were borrowed on the market.

The statement said that through its Treasury share buy-back programme, which started on November 6, UBS had now repaid all the borrowed shares.

As of Wednesday, UBS had purchased 22.1 million shares through the buy-back programme at an average price of SFr262.

UBS said it was and intended to remain one of the best-capitalised financial institutions in the world. However, it added that it would continue to avoid the build-up of excess capital through selectively investing in its own shares.

When the deal was announced last July, UBS said that the merger would combine one of the top US private client firms with the world’s largest private bank, to create the premier global institution serving private clients.

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