Moody’s Investors Service has placed the long-term debt and deposit ratings of Swiss bank UBS AG on review for possible downgrade, citing the fact that a couple of key investment businesses face bigger challenges than previously thought.

The rating agency said Monday that the review reflects its “view of the considerable challenges that UBS continues to face” in its two largest business lines: investment banking and wealth management. The firm said that it believes these challenges are unlikely to be short-lived, and pose greater risk to bondholders than it had previously believed. In addition, while the bank has benefited from substantial capital infusions over the past two years, the bank’s ability to generate capital internally remains challenged, it adds.

“Given the magnitude of the bank’s challenges and the length of time it may take to fully address them, the bank’s ratings are vulnerable to a downgrade of more than one notch,” said David Fanger, Moody’s senior vice president.

Moody’s said it views UBS’s leading wealth management franchise as a critical underpinning of its overall financial strength. “However, the bank’s sizeable losses appear to have contributed to an erosion of customer confidence in this business,” it said, noting that this was most apparent in the outflow of net new funds during the fall of 2008.

That outflow diminished after the bank agreed to sell assets to the Swiss National Bank and issue a mandatory convertible note to the Swiss Confederation. However, Moody’s believes that were the bank to suffer additional losses on its remaining legacy exposures it could potentially further undermine customer confidence, it warned.

It also said that UBS’s wealth management franchise also faces challenges due to customer concerns over privacy, in the face of demands from U.S. authorities regarding the sharing of customer information, and by the responses of the Swiss government to those demands as well as to the demands of the OECD and the European Union. “Repairing this damage may take time, Fanger said, “especially in light of the legal obstacles UBS faces in reconciling the competing demands of U.S. and Swiss authorities over bank secrecy.”

At the same time, it noted that revenues in wealth management are also under pressure due to market-driven declines in assets under management and reduced client activity. Moody’s said it believes that this leaves the bank with more limited financial flexibility to manage its challenges.

In investment banking, Moody’s said that while UBS has sold a considerable portion of its legacy exposures to the Swiss National Bank, it remains exposed to potential additional losses on its remaining legacy exposures. In addition, in Moody’s opinion, the bank appears to have benefited less than many of its peers from the recent improvement in trading margins and volumes among more liquid capital markets instruments. “The bank has also experienced a significant turnover of senior managers over the past two years, which gives us some concerns about the continuity and effectiveness of management,” Fanger added.

Moody’s said that its review will focus on the bank’s vulnerability to any further loss of customers in its wealth management franchise, its future earnings prospects under expected and stress scenarios, and its strategic direction. The review will also consider the potential effectiveness of the changes the bank has made to its risk management processes and oversight. However, the rating agency added that it believes the significant losses at many wholesale investment banks over the past two years, combined with the increased complexity and opacity of their positions, argue for skepticism about the robustness of risk management within the industry.

IE