Double digit gains in pre-tax profit contrasts with a significant year-on-year decline in wealth and asset management invested assets.

The Asia Pacific region of Switzerland’s largest bank managed to match the strong performance seen in other regions after group results, the best in 16 years, were released earlier today.

Pre-tax profit in the Asia Pacific region rose 21 percent in 2021 to $2.6 billion US dollars and were up by 34 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier.

The Americas saw full-year pre-tax profit rising 18 percent and Switzerland up 29 percent. Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) fell 2 percent because of the provision for the French cross-border tax case, which is currently being appealed. Without that, pre-tax profit would have been up 38 percent.

Asia Breakdown

Full-year 2021 operating income in Asia Pacific was up 9 percent at $6.5 billion, while expenses only rose 2 percent to $3.8 billion.

The cost-income ratio in Asia Pacific surpassed that of other regions, coming in 3.1 percentage points lower at 59.3 percent. This contrasts with the 79.2 percent reported in the Americas, 60.5 percent in Switzerland and 79.9 percent in EMEA.

Falling Invested Assets

Invested assets in the Global Wealth Management (GWM) and Asset Management businesses, however, fell significantly to $711 billion from $740 billion a earlier, although they were still significantly higher than the $605 billion recorded in 2019.

Net new fee-generating assets were $14 billion. In 2020, the first year the revised metric was reported, that number was $8 billion.

Future Targets

UBS indicated in its results presentation that it intends to focus on accelerating growth in China by expanding both its leadership and onshore business.

It also envisions strengthening South-East Asia by emphasizing family offices, tech firms, and entrepreneurs.

Beyond that, it wants to become the «go-to» bank for new economy companies and the pre-eminent regional institution for sustainable finance.

GWM in Fourth Quarter

GWM saw fourth quarter pre-tax profit and operating income higher from the same period a year earlier, driven by fee and interest income.

Fee generating assets rose 3 percent to $116 billion while net new fee generating assets were $2.8 billion.

Loans declined a significant 4 percent in the same timeframe to $49 billion, and this was prompted by outflows of $1.8 billion, mainly in Lombard lending.