Private companies are doing everything they can to avoid down rounds, raising new equity at lower valuations than past deals, but can’t hold the line for much longer.

The results of this year’s Euromoney FX survey highlight the value of long-term strategic investment in forex.

The first three months of the year have been tough for many investment banking business lines, but Europe’s banks are putting up a good fight against the might of the US firms.

JPMorgan is named the world’s best wealth manager in Euromoney’s latest private banking and wealth management survey. It is testament to the US bank’s global strength in serving the wealthiest families, along with its drive to constantly transform itself and boost diversity as it hires the most talented relationship managers in core markets.

Trading update does little to answer concerns around underlying performance and a slowdown in wealth management.

Brought in to help clean up Credit Suisse, the high-profile Portuguese banker has been forced to quit to preserve what is left of its reputation.

Ralph Hamers is quietly imposing his vision on UBS, axing senior titles to simplify the structure and eyeing a new US digital bank for affluent customers.

The Morgan Stanley veteran is a sound pick, but is an old-school investment banker the right person to run the world’s largest wealth manager?

A consensus that Evergrande’s failure will be more like the LTCM unwind than the Lehman bankruptcy could underplay ongoing challenges in hedging Chinese exposure.

Adewale Ogunleye was rich and already retired from American Football when he learned what a basis point was. He’s now head of a new UBS wealth segment called Athletes & Entertainers that helps sports icons and singers plan their financial future.

The great financial innovator shone again in global wealth management.

A Royal Commission in Papua New Guinea has heard evidence that accuses UBS of exploiting the country in a complex 2014 loan, which it is claimed enriched the Swiss bank inappropriately and was awarded over the objections of the then-Treasurer of PNG. It will report its findings in September.

UBS performed strongly again in Euromoney’s global private banking and wealth management survey in 2021. It topped the western Europe regional rankings for: best private banking services overall; serving mega high net-worth clients worth more than $250 million; family offices; business owners; and high net-worth clients with $5 million to $30 million to invest.

No other wealth manager comes close to competing with UBS for this award. Again, the Swiss banking giant demonstrated its commitment to the region. During the awards period, it relocated its Dubai office to the heart of the Emirate’s financial district and opened a new wealth management office in Doha. UBS aims to hire about 20 people in Qatar by the end of 2020, but it has already made its biggest personnel move, bringing Tarek Eido from HSBC to oversee its onshore wealth business. Eido will report to head of wealth management, Middle East and Africa, Ali Janoudi.

At the end of the first quarter of 2021, UBS’s Americas wealth management unit had more than $1.6 trillion in invested assets, up 34% on the previous year, a record for the firm. In a client satisfaction survey over the 12-month period of these awards, the bank scored 9.6 out of 10, based on 35,000 responses. And the division made a profit of $1.45 billion, another record.

Numbers don’t tell you everything, but sometimes they shout pretty loud. Apac profits for UBS Global Wealth Management grew from $560 million in 2019 to $1.1 billion in 2020; a near doubling of profitability in the middle of a pandemic. Along the way invested assets in the region passed the $500 billion mark for the first time, hitting $560 billion by the end of the year, with $25 billion of net new money.

This year’s FX survey reflects huge disruption and transition across the industry. Pandemic-driven technological advances saw traders tackle a surge in business while working remotely – supercharging change that will permanently alter the way the industry operates.

The storms buffeting Credit Suisse represent big trouble for the Swiss bank. Its new chairman may install a new CEO and set a new strategic course, but with big European banks gearing up for consolidation, Credit Suisse just put itself on the block.

The former Commerzbank chief executive and co-head of wealth management at UBS heads a strong team to help company founders with running a public company.

Investment bankers head for the exit at Australian business.

Recent reports by UBS and consultancy Bain set out to explain who China’s high net-worth individuals are, what kind of private banking services they want and how local and global lenders can best serve them.

Less charismatic chief executives will serve Europe’s banks well in the 2020s – unless it simply means that more power will reside with their chairmen.

UBS has applied to buy out two minority investors in its China joint venture, boosting its stake in Beijing-based UBS Securities to 67%. The bank’s strong and long-standing relationship with the owner of the other 33%, a division of Beijing local government, is a timely reminder that there is no one right model for success in China.

Rob Karofsky will become sole president of the investment bank at UBS, ending his ‘odd couple’ partnership with co-president Piero Novelli.

Must all former chief executives eventually form a special purpose acquisition company?

UBS’s wealth management team had another stellar year despite the Covid crisis – and once again the Swiss lender takes the top spot in Euromoney’s private banking survey.

Once a branch line of the banking industry, private banking and wealth management is now a driver in its own right. It offers a powerful way to grow income, valuations and returns. But the pressure is on as banks need to scale up or sell out.

Despite Covid, it was a good year for UBS and its outgoing chief executive Sergio Ermotti. Now it’s time for his successor Ralph Hamers to show his hand.

UBS’s strategy of creating emerging markets growth through partnerships is writ large in its joint venture with Banco do Brasil. Can the new entity become more than the sum of its parts?

It is the time of year when global banks publish their wealth reports. This year they make for compelling reading. Euromoney takes the best of these reports and examines the outlook for 2021.