UBS Offers to Buy Back 2.75 Billion Euros of Bonds

Earlier this morning UBS said that it will be buying back some of its bail-in bonds after the Credit Suisse deal, which of course saw Credit Suisse's bail-in bonds totally wiped out. This was the important part from their statement. It's all about restoring confidence, saying the issuer has decided to launch this exercise as a result of a prudent assessment of these recent developments and the issuer's long-term commitment to its credit investors. Let's bring in Bloomberg's finance editor, Stefania Bianchi on this. Stefania, what do you make of this statement and this plan from UBS? Well, look, it seems like another hasty deal that's being brought around by UBS. It's a deal that opens today. These are bonds that are coming due 2028-2032.

As you say, it's really, it seems that they're airing on the side of caution. They're being prudent just as a backstop to this deal for Credit Suisse. So yeah, let's see what the appetite is. Well speaking of being prudent, these talks first reported by the FT to unwind Michael Klein's first Boston plan. What do we know about this? Yes, so now what we're hearing is obviously this was a big plan before the UBS takeover to spin out the investment bank. Now it seems that it could all be falling apart. Michael Klein's plans, it looks as though UBS would prefer to really cherry pick the top Credit Suisse investment bankers.

So any plans that he might have had for a spin-off look as though they could be, they might not happen. Having said that, there are executives at Credit Suisse who are still holding out for this plan and they're talking to potential suitors who might still be interested in this spin-off. So we'll have to see and wait again to see what happens in that space. So while this UBS purchase of Credit Suisse still has some way to go until it's resolved, one thing in the US that has yet to be resolved is the potential rescue of First Republic Bank. Where do we stand, Stefania? That's it from one, one trouble-ender to another. So what we are learning now is that US officials and Wall Street leaders, they're in talks to really try and get a deal done for this bank. They're looking now at possibly offering government backing.

This would be a deal sweetener to any potential suitor that would come in. And they're offering incentives like perhaps looking at lifting out the assets that had eroded its balance sheet. It really is just a carrot to anyone that's looking at this bank.

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