Zurich: UBS gives up two locations
According to a report in the "NZZ", UBS is giving up two locations in downtown Zurich: The high-rise building zur Schanze and the Felsenhof office building.
How the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) reportsUBS will move out of the Schanze high-rise and also give up the Felsenhof office building. Around 650 employees will have to move. The majority of employees will in future work either on Bahnhofstrasse at the Group headquarters, on Europa-Allee, in Altstetten or in Opfikon. According to the report, the owner of the Schanze high-rise is Swiss Life.
The background to the moves is, according to NZZ UBS's location strategy, which the big bank initiated about ten years ago. The goal is to concentrate employees in fewer buildings. This applies not only to Zurich, but also to UBS's offices in London and Singapore.
Ten years ago, UBS occupied more than 50 buildings in Zurich, but with the recent moves, their number will drop to about 20, according to the NZZ. At Credit Suisse, too, the number of locations had dropped significantly within ten years: from 60 to 15.
The concentration of locations was probably also accompanied by considerable savings, according to the NZZ further. The bank does not disclose how much UBS is saving in Zurich as a result. But the newspaper points out that in 2012, UBS reported premises expenses of just under CHF 1.1 billion in its income statement. In 2018, that figure had been $914 million. However, UBS benefits not only from lower rental expenses, but also from the fact that new buildings are generally cheaper to maintain than old buildings. (ah)
