UPDATE 1-UBS seeing benefits of 'seasonality' in first quarter, Ermotti says
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March 12 (Reuters) - UBS has been getting the benefits of seasonality during the first quarter, and is looking to narrow the gap to peers in the United States, the Swiss bank's CEO Sergio Ermotti said on Tuesday.
He said the bank's performance in the first months of 2024 is not far off how other industry peers had been describing their own business operations.
"I am very pleased with the traction and the engagement with clients," Ermotti said, speaking at the Morgan Stanley conference in London.
The CEO, who is in the progress of integrating UBS's former rival Credit Suisse, also spoke of his bank's need to have a better U.S. footprint, and to narrow the gap to its peers.
But Ermotti said he did not think it would be realistic to close that gap in the next five years.
"We have the cost base of a much larger organization in the U.S., but we don't have still the product capabilities that allow us to fully leverage our global franchise," he said. (Reporting by Noele Illien and Oliver Hirt; Editing by Dave Graham)
