Swiss bank UBS AG, with U.S. operations based in Stamford, on Tuesday posted its first annual profit since the global financial crisis erupted, despite softer-than-expected fourth quarter earnings, and said it had managed to stanch the rich customers’ withdrawals that had plagued it since a high profile tax evasion scandal, The Associated Press reports.
The largest Swiss bank reported that it made a net profit last year of 7.2 billion Swiss francs ($7.5 billion), compared with a 2009 loss of 2.7 billion francs.
The last year that UBS had posted an annual profit was in 2006. In the years since then the Zurich-based bank had incurred major losses from the U.S. real estate market and required a Swiss government bailout.
But its fourth-quarter profit was 1.29 billion francs ($1.35 billion), only a modest improvement from a year earlier, when the bank reported a profit of 1.205 billion francs, and below market expectations for 1.45 billion francs.
“While we made substantial progress in 2010, we are fully aware that we have to continue to improve our results,” said UBS Chief Executive Oswald Gruebel in a statement.
Fourth quarter results benefited from a one-off tax credit of 149 million francs — significantly smaller than the one-off tax credit of 825 million francs that helped UBS beat expectations in the third quarter.
UBS said its securities unit and its private bank benefited from income gains. Its wealth management division, one of the biggest in the world, reversed earlier net outflows, suggesting it had regained the trust of rich clients who fled during a bitter tax evasion dispute with U.S. authorities.
