UBS stole a march on two British rivals to win a prestigious asset management mandate worth several billion Swiss francs. Why the Swiss bank won't be earning richly from the gig.
Zurich-based UBS has landed a major U.K. deal with a conglomerate of 11 pension funds from South England, called Access. The group will entrust 10.5 billion pounds to to the Swiss bank, or roughly 13.5 billion Swiss francs, «Financial News» (behind paywall) reported.
Rivals Legal & General Investment Management and State Street had also bid for the business. None of the asset managers commented on the auction, which Blackrock and Deutsche Bank's asset management arm reportedly also vied for.
Tiny Revenue
The publication quoted sources close to the process saying that UBS undercut its rivals in price, and also promised Access to swallow any transactions costs from the mandate.
At any rate, UBS won't earn much despite the mandate's size: Access is investing a passive mandate, where fees are roughly 0.06 percent of managed assets – which would translate to roughly 8 million francs in annual revenue.
