ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss bank UBS said on Tuesday it plans to raise its dividend by 10% and expects its share buybacks this year to exceed the $5 billion target ($4.9 billion). euros), which will increase the return to shareholders after the abandonment of the Wealthfront acquisition project.
UBS said in a statement it wants to raise its dividend to $0.55 per share from $0.51 originally planned.
This 2022 dividend will be proposed to shareholders at the general meeting next year.
“In addition, UBS expects share repurchases to exceed the $5 billion target in 2022. As of September 9, 2022, UBS has repurchased $4.1 billion of shares,” adds the banking establishment.
UBS also said the bank would provide a forecast of its return on equity ratio for next year.
On the stock market, UBS shares benefited from these announcements and gained 1.58%.
“We believe the uplift is related to the capital freed up following the abandonment of the Wealthfront acquisition,” wrote ZKB analyst Michael Klien.
UBS and Wealthfront announced at the beginning of September that they wanted to end the proposed acquisition by the Swiss bank of the provider of automated wealth management services for 1.4 billion dollars.
For the ZKB analyst, the increase in the rate of distribution to shareholders will give UBS a dividend yield of 3.4% based on the closing price on Monday.
(Report Michael Shields, French version Matthieu Protard, edited by Jean-Michel Bélot)
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