UBS To Conclude Credit Suisse Acquisition

On June 12, UBS is expected to complete the acquisition of Credit Suisse, but the process of merging the former rival will be eagerly watched by clients, staff, and Swiss political leaders.

Sergio Ermotti, the CEO of UBS, said on Friday that the upcoming months are expected to be "bumpy" and that the merger will bring "waves" of challenging decisions, notably in the personnel area.

UBS, the largest bank in the nation, was coerced into a union to keep its rival from failing, but it hasn't waited until Monday to begin making plans to acquire Credit Suisse.

But if the schedule holds, Andreas Venditti, a financial analyst with Vontobel, told AFP, "from Monday on, UBS can start to be proactive."

UBS has been preparing since the middle of March and already knows what it wants to keep, close, or sell, but until the merger was finalised, "so far they are limited in what they could do," according to Venditti.

Technically and politically challenging, the combination of Switzerland's two largest banks will create a megabank beyond anything the country has ever seen. This magnitude has political leaders concerned.

However, Thomas Jordan, the head of the Swiss National Bank, claimed that there was no other option.

Naturally, it's unfortunate that there is just one (large bank) left. But I am certain that there would have been a global financial crisis if the UBS takeover hadn't been successful," he stated Sunday in an interview with the weekly Sonntagszeitung.