 |
||
| Jon Macaskill is one of the leading capital markets and derivatives journalists, with over 20 years’ experience covering financial markets from London and New York. Most recently he worked at one of the biggest global investment banks |
 |
|
A newfound zeal for increased regulation among politicians has heightened uncertainty over key revenue sources. And there are signs that the astonishing boom in bank profits in 2009 was a one-time windfall. But experienced financiers persist in trying to develop competitors to the oligopoly that emerged from the crash of 2008.
UBS and Citadel represent approaches to the same goal from opposite directions. UBS retained a corporate finance capacity while gutting its sales and trading after losing more than $50 billion in the crash. It is now rebuilding a full-scale sales and trading operation while hoping that outflows in its core private-client business will eventually be stemmed. Citadel has relaunched its attempt to add a corporate finance function to the sales and trading expertise in its core hedge fund operations.
Both approaches face big challenges. The recent appointment by UBS of Neal Shearas global head of securities did nothing to quell predictions among rival bankers that the new-look investment bank might turn into an assortment of feuding fiefdoms.
