5-Bank strategy-return to wealth

Bank strategy银行战略Return to wealth“钱”途再现Dec 30th 2008 | ZURICH2008年12月30日| 苏黎世From The Economist print edition译自经济学人印刷版UBS has had a terrible crisis. That may help it have a better aftermath瑞士银行经历了一场惨痛的危机。

它或将反而从中受益。

“FAIL fast, fail early” i s a management mantra in many industries. Identify the projects that will not pay off quickly, and the costs of failure are capped. Banks have developed their own version of this rule—“fail completely, fail catastrophically”—but one of the earliest victims of the crisis may yet be among the first to recover.“输得越快，输得越早”这句话在很多行业就像一条管理的魔咒。

识别出不能快速获得回报的项目以及失败的成本，这一点胜过一切。

银行们在这一条规律上发展出了属于它们自己的版本---“输得越完全，输得越凄惨”---但是危机最早的那批受害者之中的一家可能会是最早恢复的一家。

UBS was one of the first to feel the effects of America’s subprime meltdown. That had some advantages. The Swiss bank started raising capital while private money was still available (although it has since had to call on government help). It installed a new leadership team relatively early. And it cut staff numbers hard, which will help during chilly times ahead.瑞士银行是最早感受到美国次贷危机的一家银行。

这有一些有利之处。

这家瑞士的银行在私人资本还可获取的时候就开始筹资（尽管它之后还是不得不求助于政府）。

它在较早的阶段就更换了管理团队。

它大规模裁员，这有助于其面对前方的重重困难。

True, UBS is also fortunate in not having big loan books to drag it down as the real economy sinks. That helps to explain why the bank’s share price has outperformed an index of European banks over the past four months (see chart). But it has taken other steps which may point the way forward for the rest of the industry.没错，瑞士银行还很幸运的没有贷款业务，这使得它不至于在实体经济下滑的时候被继续拖下水。

这可以解释为何这家银行的股价在过去的四个月里表现超过了一个欧洲银行指数（如表）。

但它还采取了一些可以为业内其它银行给予指引的措施。

Start with the state of its balance-sheet, which is now cleaner than those of most of its investment-banking peers. The bank got a huge helping-hand from the Swiss central bank, which agreed in Oc to ber to house up to$60 billion of UBS’s bad assets in a separate entity. Analysts at Morgan Stanley reckon that UBS now has the lowest ratio of problem assets to tangible common equity, a particularly pure measure of capital, of any of the big European and American wholesale banks. The idea of the “bad bank” may yet win more traction elsewhere because of the UBS example.首先，从它的资产负债表来看，它比大多数其它投行要来得干净。

该行从瑞士的中央银行获得有力的援助，后者在10月同意收购其600亿美元的不良资产，并剥离至一个单独的银行。

摩根士丹利的分析师称瑞士银行的不良资产对可辨普通股权益的比率在欧美批发银行中是最低的，其资本的计量也尤为简单明了。

由于有了瑞士银行的案例，“坏银行”这种拯救理念或许在更多的地方还会赢得掌声。

UBS has done more than spruce up its books. It has also shrunk them. The value of its assets has come down by a whopping SFr590 billion ($550 billion) since the second quarter of 2007. Most of that reduction has come not from write-downs or asset transfers but from running off short-term trading assets. UBS is already pretty close to meeting the 3% leverage ratio initially imposed upon it (and Credit Suisse) by the Swiss authorities. The people who run banks used to crow about growth in assets; now they plot their reduction.瑞士银行不仅使它的账目整饬一新，而且还缩减了其规模。

它的资产规模自2007年第2季度以来已经缩减了令人咂舌的5900亿瑞士法郎（5500亿美元）。

这些缩减大部分并非来自于资产减记或者资产转移，而是短期交易资产的减少。

瑞士银行已经相当接近于瑞士监管机构起先为它（和瑞士信贷）设定的3%的杠杆率了。

经营银行的那帮人曾经一度对如何增加资产趋之若鹜，而今却要想方设法来减少。

These changes do not protect UBS from harm. The bank retains a significant gross position in leveraged loans, for example, and hedging is difficult for everyone when markets are so volatile. Despite the reduction in assets, the bank remains leveraged to a huge degree. Its balance-sheet at the end of the third quarter was stil l $2 trillion. Marcel Rohner, the bank’s chief executive, gives warning against reading to o much in to the volume of nominal assets. Buy a share and sell a call option on that same share, he says, and your balance-sheet has grown but your risk has not.这些变化仍未能使瑞士银行免于受害。

例如，该行还保留着相当规模的杠杆贷款头寸，而在如此波动的市场中对冲是很困难的。

尽管资产有了减少，但该行的杠杆程度依然很高。

3季度末它报表上的资产规模还有2万亿美元。

该行的首席执行官马塞尔•罗纳警告不要在名义资产的项目上计入太多的数目了。

买入一份股票并同时卖出一份买入期权会增计你的报表，但却没体现出风险。

Maybe so, but inves to rs are right to question the ability of banks to judge risks precisely. That lack of certainty extends within UBS, which promises to become a more humble institution as well as a smaller one. The bank has made several changes to its governance under the guidance of Peter Kurer, its chairman.话虽这样说，但投资者们质问银行判断风险的能力却是理所当然的。

这种确定性的缺失已渗透入瑞士银行内部，促使其决意变得更谦恭且更小。

在主席彼得•库勒的领导下，该行在公司治理方面已作出一些改变。

A self-excoriating review of the bank’s failures of risk management in April was followed by the abolition of the chairman’s office, a power centre developed under Marcel Ospel, Mr Kurer’s immediate predecessor. The upshot has been much greater contact between outside board members and executives than before.该行在4月开展了一次自我批评式的回顾，并在随后取缔了主席办公室，一个由库勒的直接前任马塞尔•奥斯佩尔缔造的权力中心。