UBS’s European equity capital markets franchise emerged from 2024 with a broader balance sheet, a deeper bench and a string of headline transactions.
The bank’s recent takeover of Credit Suisse has translated into concrete deal-making firepower, resulting in visible effect on mandates, book outcomes and client mix. As Gareth McCartney, global co-head of equity capital markets, notes, “One of our biggest differentiators is scale – we can sit in front of clients with a genuinely global offering, agnostic on listing location and able to bring the best investor base wherever it may be.”
An illustration of this came in March 2024 with the SFr2.3 billion ($2.9 billion) IPO of dermatology group Galderma. UBS acted as global coordinator and injected SFr1.6 billion of incremental demand from its wealth management clients.
“We generated substantial demand from our wealth management platform, and no other bank could match it,” McCartney says. This one tranche of family-office and private-bank money broadened the book, tightened pricing and cemented UBS’s place on every subsequent sell-down for EQT’s continuing exit.
The bank continued to demonstrate repeat-issuer loyalty. In February, it led Segro’s £900 million ($1.2 billion) primary raise, the largest UK marketed follow-on in more than three years. Executed at just a 3.4% discount to the previous close, the deal highlighted UBS’s ability to balance size against pricing in a rates-driven market and reflected a longstanding corporate broker relationship that has survived multiple cycles.
The bank’s recent takeover of Credit Suisse has translated into concrete deal-making firepower, resulting in visible effect on mandates, book outcomes and client mix
The firm’s block trade activity showcased new distribution capabilities opened by the Credit Suisse acquisition. A late-2024 placing in Associated British Foods, sourced directly from a Howard family stake, was originated and run by UBS through the private-wealth channel. UBS’s access to $5 trillion of client assets and more than 3,000 family offices offers a pipeline of European blocks at a time when families own many of the largest stakes in continental blue chips.
The bank completed notable structural enhancements over the review period. First, the formerly separate private placements team has been folded into equity capital markets under Omri Lumbroso, feeding the pre-IPO pipeline for sponsors. Second, senior hiring continued even as peers retrenched: ex-Credit Suisse banker Rob Babar took over UBS’s private wealth channel, while Marco Guarino joined from Morgan Stanley to lead the EMEA equity syndicate team. The firm claims a uniquely senior front line, with 20- to 30-year veterans holding almost every regional seat.
Taken together, UBS’s 2024 European record shows turning scale into tangible outcomes: flagship IPO leadership backed by hard distribution numbers, repeat mandates rewarded with tight-spread financings, and family-office block trades that rivals could not originate. With roughly 30% of ECM fees now coming from repeat issuers, rare for a business often dominated by one-off IPOs, the bank contends it is building loyalty as well as league table share across the continent.
