UBS on Tuesday (Apr 18) said it is making changes to its US$6 billion share buyback programme following its takeover of Credit Suisse.

Switzerland’s biggest bank said it will use some of the shares for the takeover – rather than cancelling them as originally planned – after getting approval from the Swiss Takeover Board.

UBS agreed in March to buy rival Credit Suisse for three billion Swiss francs (S$4.5 billion) in stock, and agreed to assume up to five billion Swiss francs in losses. This came in a merger engineered by Swiss authorities, to avoid more market-shaking turmoil in global banking.

On Tuesday, UBS said it had decided against issuing new shares for the deal, but would instead use shares that had already been issued. Under the deal, one UBS share will be exchanged for 22.48 shares in Credit Suisse. This would require a maximum of 178 million UBS shares to be used.

So far, under the buyback – which was launched in March 2022 and will run until 2024 – 298.5 million shares have been bought back, equivalent to 8.47 per cent of its stock, UBS said. REUTERS