Hedge Funds

Incremental service and value-added solutions

UBS Prime Services is a powerful conduit of UBS's global capabilities. We offer you top-tier services tailored to your exact requirements, and designed to optimize opportunity and minimize risk.

Working with you as your 'prime partners' we're committed to delivering the benefits of our organization to help your business succeed. We offer global clearing, custody, flexible financing solutions, full accounting support, plus access to our foreign exchange and fixed income platforms.

We also offer an array of value added services that distinguish us in the industry, including Capital Introduction, Business Consulting, cross-product risk based lending and solution based swaps.

Our service provides timely settlement and clearing of securities and cash balances for all transactions in more than 60 markets – in any time-zone and all major currencies, whether you have executed the transaction through us or with a third party. Through your dedicated account manager, you have access to a full range of operational solutions and financing options allowing you to operate all over the world, seven days a week.

Working together to help you achieve your goals

Our aim is to deliver the full strength and depth of UBS's global capabilities in support of your financial objectives. Our Transition Coordinators walk you through every aspect of on-boarding, from documentation to connectivity, ensuring your introduction to Prime Services is comprehensive and efficient.

Concurrently, we give you access to dedicated specialists in accounting, margin, operations, swaps, and securities-lending, who work in partnership with you to add value providing you with a flexible, responsive and tailored service - from the daily management of your accounts through to customized technology solutions.

Access to one of the largest pools of exclusively available securities in the world

Securities lending is an acknowledged strength of UBS. Our specialists are strategically situated to enable us to gather, supply and build a strong local presence in major leading markets including London, Zurich, New York, Toronto, Chicago, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Melbourne.

Our securities lending desks work together to provide 24-hour global coverage across all borders, markets and time zones. In addition to our own lending capabilities, UBS's extensive counterparty network includes UBS Financial Services' inventory as well as exclusive lending arrangements with the largest securities lenders across the world. Our proactive approach focuses on gathering supply and combines superior buy-in and recall protection with hard-to-borrow sourcing for the most difficult short-selling strategies.

As one of the world's largest wealth manager, we have access as principal or agent to over US$1.3 trillion in US and international securities. This pool is further enhanced by our ability to access non-traditional supply of 'fully paid' assets owned by our retail clients. Additionally, we can create supply synthetically, and can often provide short access in markets which are closed to security lending.

Our superior credit ratings make us a preferred borrower with major custodians, third-party agents, fund managers, and other bank portfolios.

The tools you need to make informed decisions

UBS Prime Services provides a flexible and scalable technology platform to our client base in multiple time zones worldwide. By delivering a global platform that is frequently updated to reflect feedback from our clients, we provide an intuitive and thorough technology solution designed to succeed with our clients' complex workflows.

Customizable reports and data can be generated in multiple file formats to support the diverse requirements of our clients and their global operational processes, while our interactive tools allow clients to closely analyze their multi-asset class portfolios and make timely investment decisions.

Integration is another key strength in our technology. Through internal partnerships, we provide seamless connectivity to award-winning research and commission management. Our extensive relationships with external vendors (including order management systems and fund administrators) enables us to easily connect with our clients' existing infrastructure, allowing them to focus on portfolio management from day one.

Swaps, CFDs, Portfolio swaps and forwards

Both institutional and hedge fund clients can access UBS synthetic products via our integrated global platform, which combines reporting and margin requirements into your prime services account. In addition to enhancing portfolio leverage, our swap products offer superior global access to stock loan supply, optimal cash management solutions, world-class execution, risk management, and competitive pricing.

Our swaps platform combines the infrastructure of our global prime services business with the broad-reaching execution and advisory capabilities of our global equities business. The UBS synthetic platform offers innovative solutions in financing, tax, cash, risk management, market access, and shorting, whilst maintaining top-quality execution.

Facilitating the flow of capital between investors and funds

UBS's Capital Introduction Consulting team comprises 27 members based out of 6 offices globally.

This unwavering commitment to a full service Capital Introduction capability has helped ensure that we consistently deliver the highest calibre of service to hedge funds and investors across all types, strategies and geographies.

For our hedge fund clients, our relationship starts with an understanding of your strategy, business goals and objectives. This consultative approach assists us in providing bespoke insight to our clients on a broad spectrum of topics ranging from fund structures and terms to current investor appetite.

Additionally, our broad investor coverage helps us deliver specialized knowledge as relates to family offices, funds of hedge funds, banks, insurance companies, pensions, endowments and foundations, and other institutional investors.

For investors, we stay apprised on individual strategy preferences, return objectives, regional desires, volatility tolerances, and other qualitative and quantitative characteristics that allow us to introduce hedge fund clients that are most appropriate, while ensuring the most interesting new investment ideas flow through our global platform. We also act as an information resource for investors on pertinent hedge fund industry trends and developments.

Everything you need to build your business

Our business consulting unit works closely with all parts of our sales, service and trading teams to deliver the best solution for your business. We can assist you with the launch, growth and repositioning of your hedge fund across a diverse range of strategies, geographies and business models.

Our substantial investment in start-up resources ensures that you meet your launch goals and efficiently start your operations. If you’re a well established firm, we can provide customized services to support you at key points in your development.

UBS's business consulting teams are based in the US, Europe and Asia. Each has specific expertise in launching and expanding businesses. We give you access to our extensive vendor network, including accounting, tax, legal, fund administration and compliance service providers, and work closely together with your professional advisers to offer our full support.

Our in-depth knowledge of process-flow and operations means that we can help you identify gaps in your business model, and support you with technology, people or out-sourced solutions, so you can reduce your risk in order to achieve the level of operational excellence that your investors demand.

A client-centric service, delivering complete, integrated solutions and support

Our clearing and execution team is a fully integrated international network of experienced industry professionals, offering a genuinely client-centric service. UBS clearing and execution is positioned as one of the world’s leading providers by exchange volume and client assets.

Our, sales, execution and technology staff work side by side in the major financial centers worldwide. We’ve expanded and strengthened our global franchise and product offering in North America, Asia and the Emerging Markets to offer efficiencies of scale, increased deal flow and greater global liquidity.

Our front-to-back technology gives you fast, direct access to over 70 global exchanges with state-of-the-art clearing technology so you can connect to any system of your choice.

Product and process expertise

Within our Global Clearing Services group, we offer cross-product prime brokerage and clearing services covering both Fixed Income and Foreign Exchange products. Our Fixed Income offering incorporates clearing services for credit and interest rates, and is fully integrated with our prime brokerage service across Equities, Futures and Foreign Exchange.

With a dedicated and experienced global sales and client service team focusing on your needs and requirements, our top priority is to provide you with personal attention together with product and process expertise. We put our formidable top-rated capabilities across research, trading and operations to work for you as we proactively focus on adding value at every stage of the investment process.

A holistic approach across all strategies

As a leading foreign exchange provider, UBS is widely recognized in the market for our global reach, innovative technology, and exceptional products and services. Our strength in FX translates into direct access to competitive prices and deep liquidity, 24 hours a day.

The UBS FX Prime Brokerage and Clearing service is an integrated offering that marries high levels of client service with market-leading technology. Our straight-through-processing capabilities and top-ranked online platform ensure that our clients have immediate access to their positions, reports and market risk data to fully realize the benefits of improved efficiency.