Switzerland's biggest bank posted an increase in net profit of 54 percent in 2020, as income outperformed a more modest increase in operating expenses. The dividend payment will be about half of what it was a year earlier as the bank is shifting its focus on share repurchases.
Zurich-based UBS in the fourth quarter of 2020 had a net profit attributable to shareholders of $1.71 billion, more than double the amount it generated a year earlier, the bank said in a statement on Tuesday. This performance helped push the full-year profit to $6.63 billion, up from $4.3 billion.
The bank reached all its growth targets last year, CEO Ralph Hamers said in the statement. It received more than $100 billion in net new money and invested assets across asset and wealth management reached record levels, now at $4.1 trillion.
Repurchase Program and Dividend
The fourth quarter of 2020 proved to be another bumper period, with pretax profit more than doubling to $2.06 billion, including net credit loss expenses of $66 million. The cost/income ratio was 74.1 percent, a 12.7 percentage point improvement from a year earlier, as income (before credit loss expense) increased by 16 percent and total operating expenses decreased by 1 percent.
UBS proposes to pay a dividend of $0.37 per share and it aims to repurchase $1.1 billion of shares in the first quarter of 2021.
