A trader fraud cost $ 2 billion to UBS
New Jerome Kerviel is it about to be unmasked? That's the question must be asked on Thursday morning the leaders of UBS. The Swiss bank has in fact announced a fraud due to unauthorized trading operation carried out by one of its traders. The man, of unknown identity but not yet working in the equity markets division in London according to the Swiss newspaper NZZ, has been arrested in the British capital, said the financial police of the city.
In a very brief statement released this morning on its website, the group Zurich estimated the loss caused by fraud 2 billion, or $ 1.46 billion. "Customers' accounts will not be affected," says Officer, explains, however, that the extent of fraud will most likely accounts plunge into the red for the current quarter, the third of its fiscal year.
In late August, the Swiss giant has already announced that its quarterly accounts would be burdened by restructuring charges related to his economic plan of 2 billion Swiss francs (1.8 billion) by 2013. At that time, management had considered these exceptional charges of 550 million Swiss francs (456 million). With two billion dollars of potential losses announced this jeudimatin, so the bank could announce a major deficit. In the second quarter, UBS had announced a net profit group share of 1, 01 billion Swiss francs (840 million euros).
An image more tarnished
The precise cost of such fraud is still unclear but the bank should give more details on the occasion of the publication of accounts for the third quarter, scheduled for 25 October.Although the amount of fraud is still well below the losses caused by Jerome Kerviel, the former trader the most notorious of the Societe Generale (4.9 billion euros of losses also unauthorized operations) . However, this new financial scandal should put on the front of the stage vulnerabilities of control systems of banks, on policy positions of its brokers.
Furthermore, this case should a little dent the image of the Swiss bank. In 2008, she was among the banks most exposed to subprime. In total, in 2007 and 2008, UBS had thus unveiled record losses related to its exposure to toxic assets: 5.24 billion and 19.7 billion francs (4.35 and 16.37 billion euros).Today, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) even accused of having sold $ 4.5 billion of toxic assets to mortgage refinancing agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and is seeking in return for $ 900 million . Finally, the Swiss bank is also under investigation in France on suspicion of using tax evasion.
Thursday morning, UBS did not give details on the progress of investigations for fraud, saying only that an investigation is underway. Meanwhile, the shareholders of the Swiss bank would have gone well for such a scandal, in a stock market already adverse to bank stocks.At the Zurich Stock Exchange, UBS clinched the title by more than 7% on Thursday, at 10.24 Swiss francs (8.51 euros), with 45% lower as its highest since Feb. 18 annual.
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