UBS Exits Businesses While Blackstone Adapts to the New World Order UBS AG, Switzerland’s largest bank, has been conducting multiple rounds of job cuts at its securities division in order to to shrink the fixed-income unit after record losses from the global financial crisis, according to Bloomberg and other media sources. The Zurich-based bank will […]
Faced with asset outflows and earnings pressures in its core business, a global investment management firm AllianceBernstein has embarked on a noteworthy business model transformation. In recent years, performance of AllianceBernstein’s $500 bill ion asset management business lagged competitors. This, in turn, has led to significant investor redemptions that continued even as performance improved last […]
The typical bond fund represents a quintessential static business model – always exposed to the same risks, always at the mercy of competitive and market forces, and challenged to effectively react to the rapidly changing financial world. Traditionally a staple of any investment portfolio, they have been a source of reasonably steady – if unspectacular […]
In its recent investment in Facebook, Goldman Sachs demonstrated noteworthy innovation and dynamism demanded by the new economic environment. When markets stabilized as the financial crisis subsided, like other financial firms, Goldman found that opportunities to make above-market returns vanished. Moreover, competitive pressures intensified, higher capital requirements and fee regulation threatened to diminish future earnings […]