AN ACCELERATED RACE TO THE TOP

On 15 April 2009, Oswald Grübel, UBS's chief executive, unveiled a financial loss of SFr2bn (€1.3bn) for the Swiss bank in the first quarter of 2009. With this figure, UBS's total writedowns, dating back to the beginning of the financial crisis in August 2007, reached around €37.8bn. After the technology bubble burst in early 2000, UBS had launched an impressive global expansion process, becoming one of the darlings of the investment banking industry. Its growth was phenomenal, its profitability was very high and its business model was admired by many competitors. At a time when other major investment banks, such as Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, were experiencing severe problems, UBS seemed to have developed the capabilities to overtake them. The incredible trading floor of the recently built UBS regional headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, was a symbol of the bank's new power in the United States: it was considered the largest trading room in the world. It aptly reflected UBS's ambitions to become one of the world's top investment banks by the end of the decade.

Unfortunately, in June 2007 UBS was being closely watched not for its ambitions, but for some hints that a deep crisis was brewing. The sudden replacement of Peter Wuffli, UBS's chief executive, with Marcel Rohner, came as a big surprise inside the bank.