UBS to raise dividend, exceed buyback after deal collapsed

Swiss bank UBS plans to raise the dividend for this year by 10 per cent and will probably exceed a target for share buy-backs, as it returns excess capital to investors following the cancellation of its Wealthfront acquisition.

The Zurich-based lender will propose a dividend of 55 cents a share at its annual meeting, up from 50 cents a year earlier, it said in a statement Tuesday. It also expects share repurchases to exceed a target of $5 billion for 2022. UBS has already bought back $4.1 billion worth of shares as of September 9th.

The move comes after the Swiss firm this month called off the $1.4 billion acquisition of US-based so-called robo-adviser Wealthfront, as valuations for tech stocks tumbled. The deal would have been chief executive Ralph Hamers’ biggest transaction since becoming CEO less than two years ago, and was the centrepiece of his focus on broadening UBS’s wealth-management offering beyond the traditional customer base through the use of digital platforms.

Founded in 2008, Wealthfront was an early robo-adviser, using algorithms to help users manage money. The acquisition would have added more than $27 billion in assets under management and over 470,000 clients in the US for UBS. Hamers has said the bank must embrace a broader base of customers, even it if means pushing lower-margin, automated products that aren’t the hallmark of UBS’s personalised offerings.

Hamers said in May that UBS was “as much of a US player as a we are a Swiss player and the bank could “absolutely compete with Wall Street titans on advising the rich. — Bloomberg L.P.