Annual Report highlights

A year impacted by the Credit Suisse acquisition

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2023 financial performance

Our 2023 financial performance was heavily impacted by the acquisition and the start of the integration work of Credit Suisse.

We have made good progress as we have stabilized the franchise with the definition of the operating model and the achievement of underlying profitability.

Since closing of the acquisition in 2023, we attracted USD 77bn of net new assets in GWM and USD 77bn of net new deposits across GWM and P&C. We also made good progress in reducing costs with USD ~4bn in exit rate gross cost savings in 2023 versus 2022. We aim to deliver exit rate gross cost savings of approximately USD 13bn by the end of 2026 compared with the full year 2022 for the combined organizations. Gross cost savings will create capacity to reinvest for growth and to enhance the resilience of our infrastructure. We also made strong progress in the wind-down of the Non-Core and Legay Unit with RWA down USD 12bn and LRD down USD 19bn, respectively, since the second quarter of 2023. For 2023, we have delivered a net profit attributable to shareholders of USD 27,849bn, driven by negative goodwill of USD 27,748bn.

We maintained our strong capital position with a CET1 ratio of 14.4% and total loss absorbing capacity of around USD 200bn.

 

Our capital return plans

Capital strength is a key pillar of our strategy, and we are committed to maintaining a balance sheet for all seasons. We intend to distribute excess capital to shareholders, in the form of a progressive dividend and share buybacks.

For the 2023 financial year, the Board of Directors plans to propose a dividend to UBS Group AG shareholders of USD 0.70 per share, a 27% increase year on year. We are committed to distributing excess capital to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and plan to reinstate share repurchases of up to USD 1bn during 2024, commencing after the completion of the merger between UBS AG and Credit Suisse AG, which is expected by the end of the second quarter of 2024. It is our ambition for share repurchases in 2026 to exceed the 2022 level of USD 5.6bn.

 

Our compensation approach in 2023

Over the past years, our performance award pool has consistently reflected our pay-for-performance philosophy and our disciplined approach in managing compensation over business cycles and in alignment to shareholder interests. Accordingly, we carefully assessed the financial results and excluded both the positive and negative one-time financial impacts of the acquisition of the Credit Suisse Group.

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