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127-597: Nassim Nicholas Taleb ( / ˈ t ɑː l ə b / ; alternatively Nessim or Nissim ; born 12 September 1960) is a Lebanese-American essayist, mathematical statistician , former option trader , risk analyst , and aphorist . His work concerns problems of randomness , probability , complexity , and uncertainty . Taleb is the author of the Incerto , a five-volume work on the nature of uncertainty published between 2001 and 2018 (notably, The Black Swan and Antifragile ). He has taught at several universities, serving as

254-537: A Greek Orthodox Christian . Taleb received Bachelor and Master of Science degrees from the University of Paris . He holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania (1983), and a PhD in management science from the University of Paris (Dauphine) (1998), under the direction of Hélyette Geman . His dissertation focused on the mathematics of derivatives pricing. Taleb has been

381-533: A 1% decrease in AUM compared to the equivalent data of 2014. As of 2018, UBS manages the largest amount of private wealth in the world, counting approximately half of The World's Billionaires among its clients. More than 60% of total invested assets in UBS Wealth Management belong to individuals with a net worth of CHF 10 million or more. Of the remaining 40% of total invested assets, 30% of

508-446: A 1929 peak of CHF 1.6 billion to its 1918 levels of CHF 1 billion by 1936. In 1937, SBC adopted its three-keys logo , designed by Warja Honegger-Lavater , symbolizing confidence, security, and discretion, which remains an integral part in the current-day logo of UBS. On the eve of World War II in 1939, SBC, like other Swiss banks, was the recipient of large influxes of foreign funds for safekeeping. Just prior to

635-466: A 2018 study published by Coalition Research Institute, UBS was among the top 10 of the world's investment banks. UBS traces its history to 1862, the year when Bank in Winterthur , forerunner of Union Bank of Switzerland , was founded. When Union Bank and SBC merged, officials originally wanted to name the merged company the "United Bank of Switzerland," but opted to call it simply UBS because of

762-504: A Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering since September 2008. He has also been a practitioner of mathematical finance and is currently an adviser at Universa Investments . The Sunday Times described his 2007 book The Black Swan as one of the 12 most influential books since World War II . Taleb criticized risk management methods used by

889-445: A Warburg expansion into the U.S. had turned out flawed and costly, and talks in 1994 with Morgan Stanley about a merger had collapsed. SBC merged the firm with its own existing investment banking unit to create SBC Warburg. Two years later, in 1997, SBC paid US$ 600 million (~$ 1.06 billion in 2023) to acquire Dillon, Read & Co. , a U.S. bulge bracket investment bank. Dillon, Read & Co., which traced its roots to

1016-462: A broad range of securities and savings products that are supported by the firm's underwriting and research activities as well as clients' orders management and execution and also clearing services for transactions originated by individual investors. The business is further divided geographically with separate businesses focused on the U.S. and other international markets. Two-thirds of the total invested assets come from Europe and Switzerland, with

1143-865: A central building block of UBS's universal bank delivery model in Switzerland and it supports other divisions, such as Investment Bank, by referring clients to them and by assisting them to build their wealth to a level at which they can be transferred to UBS Wealth Management. The retail and corporate distribution network comprises not only 279 branches in Switzerland, but 1,250 teller machines and self-service terminals, as well as digital banking services, serving 2.5 million personal banking clients. UBS Asset Management offers equity, fixed income , currency , hedge fund , global real estate , infrastructure and private equity investment capabilities that can also be combined in multi-asset strategies. The 1998 UBS-SBC merger and subsequent restructuring resulted in

1270-399: A company name, UBS is no longer considered an acronym. In fact, that was one of the more than 370 financial firms that have, since 1862, become part of today's UBS. During the 2007–2008 financial crisis , UBS managed heavy losses with an asset relief recovery programme. In 2011, the company was hit by the 2011 rogue trader scandal resulting in a US$ 2 billion trading loss. In 2012,

1397-408: A follow-up book on anti-fragility. Taleb's book The Bed of Procrustes summarizes the central problem: "we humans, facing limits of knowledge, and things we do not observe, the unseen and the unknown, resolve the tension by squeezing life and the world into crisp commoditized ideas". Taleb disagrees with Platonic (i.e., theoretical) approaches to reality to the extent that they lead people to have

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1524-556: A former bond trader and co-head of Fixed income at Credit Suisse First Boston and head of Fixed Income Trading at Union Bank of Switzerland in 1998, was appointed CEO of UBS's investment banking division, which originated in SBC's Warburg Dillon Read division and was renamed UBS Warburg in December 2001. In an attempt to break into the elite bulge bracket of investment banks, in which UBS then had little success while rival Credit Suisse

1651-575: A full-time author. He describes the nature of his involvement as "totally passive" from 2010 on. Taleb considers himself less a businessman than an epistemologist of randomness , and says that he used trading to attain independence and freedom from authority. He advocated for tail risk hedging , which is intended to mitigate investors' exposure to extreme market moves. Tail risk hedging safeguards investors by reaping rewards from rare events, thus Taleb's investment management career has included several jackpots followed by lengthy dry spells. Taleb attended

1778-529: A limited downside. Taleb asserts that by adopting these strategies, a portfolio can be "robust", i.e. gain a positive exposure to black swan events while limiting losses suffered by such random events. Together with Donald Geman and Hélyette Geman , he modeled a maximum entropy barbell "to constrain only what can be constrained (in a robust manner) and to maximize entropy elsewhere", based on an insight by E. T. Jaynes that economic life increases in entropy under regulatory and other constraints. Taleb also applies

1905-507: A major coup for Costas. Moelis joined UBS from Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette in 2001 shortly after its acquisition by Credit Suisse First Boston (although Huw Jenkins claimed he had hired Moelis to the UK Parliamentary Banking commission while under oath, which is patently false). In his six years at UBS, Moelis ultimately assumed the role of president of UBS Investment Bank and was credited, along with Costas, with

2032-408: A major restructuring of the bank's operations. Looking to take advantage of the situation, Credit Suisse approached Union Bank of Switzerland about a merger that would have created the second largest bank in the world in 1996. Union Bank of Switzerland's management and board unanimously rebuffed the proposed merger. Ebner, who supported the idea of a merger, led a shareholder revolt that resulted in

2159-568: A method of scientific discovery, by which he means that decentralized experimentation outperforms directed research. Taleb was born in Amioun , Lebanon , to Minerva Ghosn and Nagib Taleb, an oncologist and a researcher in anthropology . His parents were Greek Orthodox Christians , and had French citizenship . His maternal grandfather Fouad Nicolas Ghosn   [ Wikidata ] and great-grandfather Nicolas Ghosn  [ Wikidata ] were both deputy prime ministers of Lebanon in

2286-475: A model, and that models are "lecturing birds on how to fly". Teacher and author Pablo Triana has explored this topic with reference to Haug and Taleb. Triana has stated that Taleb might be correct in recommending that retail banks be treated as utilities , i.e. forbidden to take potentially disastrous risks, whereas hedge funds and other less-regulated investment entities need not be subject to similar restrictions. In his writings, Taleb has identified and discussed

2413-583: A name clash with the separate Swiss company United Bank Switzerland – a part of the United Bank Limited 's Swiss subsidiary. Therefore, UBS is no longer an acronym but is the company's brand. Its logo of three keys, carried over from SBC, stands for the company's values of confidence, security, and discretion. UBS' earliest corporate ancestor was formed in 1854, when six private banking firms in Basel , Switzerland pooled their resources to form

2540-528: A practitioner of mathematical finance as a hedge fund manager, and a derivatives trader . He has held the following positions: managing director and proprietary trader at Credit Suisse UBS , currency trader at First Boston , chief currency derivatives trader for Banque Indosuez , managing director and worldwide head of financial option arbitrage at CIBC Wood Gundy , derivatives arbitrage trader at Bankers Trust (now Deutsche Bank ), proprietary trader at BNP Paribas , independent option market maker on

2667-417: A result of the bank's policy of requiring death certificates from family members to claim the contents of the account. UBS's handling of these revelations were largely criticized and the bank received significant negative attention in the U.S. UBS came under significant pressure, particularly from American politicians, to compensate Holocaust survivors who were making claims against the bank. Shortly after

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2794-1033: A significant Lebanese community, with a Maronite Cathedral the center of one of two eparchies for Maronite Lebanese in the United States, the other being in Los Angeles. Lebanese Americans are categorized as White for census purposes. Easton, Pennsylvania ; Utica, New York ; South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ; San Diego, California ; Jacksonville, Florida ; Sterling Heights , Michigan ; Los Angeles County ; San Francisco, California ; Peoria, Illinois ; Grosse Pointe, Michigan ; Miami, Florida ; Wichita, Kansas ; Bloomfield, Michigan ; Fall River, Massachusetts ; Worcester, Massachusetts ; Boston, Massachusetts ; Springfield, Massachusetts ; Methuen, Massachusetts ; Lawrence, Massachusetts ; Salem, New Hampshire ; Cleveland, Ohio ; Lansing, Michigan ; East Grand Rapids, Michigan ; Albuquerque, New Mexico ; Tulsa, Oklahoma ; St. Clair Shores, Michigan ; Toledo, Ohio ;

2921-483: A similar barbell-style approach to health and exercise. Instead of doing steady and moderate exercise daily, he suggests that it is better to do a low-effort exercise such as walking slowly most of the time, while occasionally expending extreme effort. He claims that the human body evolved to live in a random environment, with various unexpected but intense efforts and much rest. Taleb appeared with Ron Paul and Ralph Nader on their respective shows in support of Skin in

3048-646: A track record of 20 consecutive quarters of rising profits. In 2006, UBS set up a joint venture in China (see UBS Securities, China branch ). However, by the end of 2006, UBS began to experience changing fortunes. In late 2005, Costas headed a new hedge fund unit within UBS known as Dillon Read Capital Management . His former position was taken over by Huw Jenkins , a long-time legacy UBS investment banker. In 2006, UBS bankers Blair Effron and Michael Martin announced their departures. In March 2007, Moelis announced that he

3175-560: A way to outperform directed research as a method of scientific discovery, an approach he terms convex tinkering. Taleb has called for discontinuation of the Nobel Prize in Economics , saying that the damage from economic theories can be devastating. He opposes top-down knowledge as an academic illusion. Together with Espen Gaarder Haug, Taleb asserts that option pricing is determined in a "heuristic way" by market participants, not by

3302-555: A year. Those who now settle are predominantly Muslim , in contrast to the predominantly- Christian population of immigrants of previous waves. Christians still comprise a majority of Lebanese in America and in the diaspora of around 14 million Lebanese people living outside Lebanon. Most of the Lebanese immigrants during the first and the early part of the second waves were Christians . Muslims followed in large numbers beginning in

3429-786: Is bundled with the other four works in July 2019 as Incerto (Deluxe Edition) ISBN   978-1984819819 . Lebanese-American Lebanese Americans comprise 0.79% of the American population, as of the American Community Survey estimations for year 2007, and 32.4% of all Americans who originate from the Middle East. Lebanese Americans have had significant participation in American politics and involvement in both social and political activism. The diversity within

3556-419: Is considered one of the "biggest, most powerful financial institutions in the world". The company's capital strength, security protocols, and reputation for discretion have yielded a substantial market share in banking and a high level of brand loyalty . Alternatively, it receives routine criticism for facilitating tax noncompliance and off-shore financing . UBS is a primary dealer and Forex counterparty of

3683-476: Is not taken seriously in academia. Haug and Taleb (2011) listed hundreds of research documents showing the Black–Scholes formula was not derived by Scholes, and argued that the economics establishment ignored literature by practitioners and mathematicians such as Ed Thorp , who many years earlier, had developed a more sophisticated version of the formula. Taleb's outspoken and directed commentary against parts of

3810-428: Is pointless, because risk is difficult, if not impossible to compute. His preferred strategy is to be both hyper-conservative and hyper-aggressive at the same time. For example, an investor might put 80 to 90% of their money in extremely safe instruments, such as treasury bills, with the remainder going into highly risky and diversified speculative bets. An alternative suggestion is to engage in highly speculative bets with

3937-463: Is the leading provider of retail banking and commercial banking services in Switzerland, as established already in 2009. Overall invested assets are $ 3.101 billion, shareholders' equity is $ 52.928 billion and market capitalization is $ 45.907 billion by the end of 2018. In November 2014, the shares in UBS Group AG were listed and started trading as a new holding company at

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4064-532: The American Civil War when cotton prices rose dramatically. The Toggenburger Bank was founded in 1863 with an initial share capital of CHF 1.5 million, and specialized as a savings and mortgage bank for individual customers, maintaining a branch office network in eastern Switzerland. The new company was initially traded under the English name Swiss Banking Association , but in 1921 it

4191-652: The American Statistical Association devoted the August 2007 issue of The American Statistician to The Black Swan . The magazine offered a mixture of praise and criticism for Taleb's main points, with a focus on Taleb's writing style and his representation of the statistical literature. Robert Lund, a mathematics professor at Clemson University , writes that in Black Swan , Taleb is "reckless at times and subject to grandiose overstatements;

4318-544: The Americas consists of U.S. and Canadian wealth management businesses, as well as international business booked in the U.S. UBS Wealth Management in the U.S. is an outgrowth of the former Paine Webber brokerage business. The business was initially renamed UBS Paine Webber in March 2001, after it was acquired by UBS. The division offers wealth management advice for ultra-high net worth and high net worth clients. UBS

4445-847: The Bankverein , a consortium that acted as an underwriting syndicate for its member banks. In 1871, the Bankverein coordinated with the German Frankfurter Bankverein to form the Basler Bankverein , a joint-stock company replacing the original Bankverein consortium. After the new bank started with an initial commitment of CHF 30 million and CHF 6 million of share capital, it soon experienced growing pains when heavy losses in Germany caused it to suspend its dividend until 1879. Following

4572-535: The Basler Handelsbank (Commercial Bank of Basel), which was one of the largest banks in Switzerland, but became insolvent by the end of the war. SBC remained among the Swiss government's leading underwriters of debt in the post-war years. SBC, which had entered the 1950s with 31 branch offices in Switzerland and three abroad, more than doubled its assets from the end of the war to CHF 4 billion by

4699-588: The Black–Scholes–Merton formula . Taleb accused Scholes of being responsible for the 2007–2008 financial crisis , and suggested that "this guy should be in a retirement home doing Sudoku . His funds have blown up twice. He shouldn't be allowed in Washington to lecture anyone on risk." Scholes retorted that Taleb simply "popularises ideas and is making money selling books". Scholes claimed that Taleb does not cite previous literature, and for this reason Taleb

4826-492: The Bulge Bracket , particularly Goldman Sachs , JPMorgan Chase , and Bank of America . The American division also offers its own credit card not sponsored by another bank unlike many of its competitors. On a global scale, UBS competes with the largest global investment banks , particularly within the Bulge Bracket . and until acquiring Credit Suisse in 2023 was regularly compared against it. According to

4953-633: The Certificate in Quantitative Finance . He is also a faculty member of the New England Complex Systems Institute . Taleb's first non-technical book, Fooled by Randomness , about the underestimation of the role of randomness in life, published in 2001, was selected by Fortune as one of the smartest 75 books known. His second non-technical book, The Black Swan , about unpredictable events,

5080-542: The Chicago Mercantile Exchange and hedge fund manager for Empirica Capital . Taleb reportedly became financially independent after the crash of 1987 from his hedged short Eurodollar position while working as a trader for First Boston. Next, Taleb pursued work toward his PhD in Paris, completing the degree program in 1998 . He returned to New York City and founded Empirica Capital in 1999 . During

5207-566: The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex ; El Paso, Texas ; Austin, Texas ; San Antonio, Texas and Houston, Texas also have sizeable Lebanese communities. The Arab American Institute reports the top five states where Lebanese Americans reside are: Michigan (11%), California (9%), Ohio (6%), Florida (6%), and Massachusetts (5%). for a more thorough list, click here Lebanese diaspora : Europe Overseas Middle East [REDACTED] Media related to Lebanese diaspora in

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5334-617: The Northern Trust Corporation , an American international financial services company, announced an agreement for the acquisition of UBS Asset Management's fund administration servicing units in Luxembourg and Switzerland . This acquisition will facilitate the expansion of the Northern Trust Corporation into these two countries, turning the American company into the major fund administrator in

5461-743: The Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC) to cater to the increasing credit needs of Swiss railroad and manufacturing companies. It formed a private banking syndicate that expanded, aided by Switzerland's international neutrality . In 1912, the Bank of Winterthur merged with Toggenburger Bank to form the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) and grew rapidly after the Banking Law of 1934 codified Swiss banking secrecy. Following decades of market competition between Union Bank of Switzerland and

5588-532: The United Kingdom , including a large number on the ill-fated liner RMS Titanic . The second wave of Lebanese immigration began in the late 1940s and continued through the early 1990s, when Lebanese immigrants had been fleeing the Lebanese Civil War . Between 1948 and 1990, over 60,000 Lebanese entered the United States. Since then, immigration has increased to an estimated 5,000 immigrants

5715-661: The Wall Street of Switzerland. By 1923, offices were established throughout Switzerland. Although the bank suffered in the aftermath of World War I and the Great Depression , it was able to make several smaller acquisitions ; in 1937 it established Intrag AG, an asset management business responsible for investment trusts , (i.e. mutual funds ). The activities of the Union Bank of Switzerland during World War II were not publicly known until decades after

5842-525: The World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos in 2009; at that event he had harsh words for bankers, suggesting that bankers' recklessness will not be repeated "if you have punishment". Taleb shifted his career emphasis to mathematical research in 2006. Since 2008, he has taught classes at New York University Tandon School of Engineering , as Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering. and

5969-625: The private placement of equity , debt , and derivatives . The Sales & Trading division comprises equities ( brokering , dealing , market making and engaging in proprietary trading in equities , equity-related products, equity derivatives , and structured products ) and FX, Rates and Credit (FRC) ( brokering , dealing , market making and engaging in proprietary trading in interest rate products, credit products, mortgage-backed securities , leveraged loans , investment grade and high-yield debt , currencies , structured products , and derivative products ). Following an expansion in 2002,

6096-539: The "black swan" idea, owned and managed by Spitznagel in Miami, Florida. Taleb attributed the 2007–2008 financial crisis , to the mismatch between reality and statistical distributions used in finance. Taleb's investing approach produced significant returns once again, with some Universa funds returning 65% to 115% in October 2008. In a 2007 Wall Street Journal article, Taleb claimed he retired from trading and would be

6223-498: The 1830s, was among the powerhouse firms on Wall Street in the 1920s and 1930s, and by the 1990s had a particularly strong mergers and acquisitions advisory group. Dillon Read had been in negotiations to sell itself to ING , which owned 25% of the firm already, but Dillon Read partners balked at ING 's integration plans. After its acquisition by SBC, Dillon Read was merged with SBC-Warburg to create SBC-Warburg Dillon Read. Following SBC's later merger with Union Bank of Switzerland ,

6350-533: The 1940s through the 1970s, and his four-times great grandfather was one of the board of directors to the administrator of Mount Lebanon . His paternal grandfather Nassim Taleb was a supreme court judge. Taleb attended a French school in Beirut, the Grand Lycée Franco-Libanais . His family saw its political prominence and wealth reduced by the Lebanese Civil War , which began in 1975. He is

6477-1000: The Americas, 30% in Switzerland, 19% in Europe (excluding Switzerland), the Middle East and Africa and 21% in the Asia Pacific region. The bank has its major presence in the United States . Its American headquarters for investment banking are located in New York City , for private wealth management advisory in Weehawken, New Jersey . They have sales & trading and private wealth management offices in Stamford, Connecticut . The company's global business groups are global wealth management , investment bank , asset management and personal & corporate banking. UBS

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6604-510: The Game (2018). It was originally published in November 2016 including only the first four books. The fifth book was added in August 2019. Taleb's non-technical writing style has been described as mixing a narrative, often semi-autobiographical style with short philosophical tales and historical and scientific commentary. The sales of Taleb's first two books garnered an advance of $ 4 million, for

6731-481: The Game , which was dedicated to both men. After the 2022 invasion of Ukraine , however, Taleb publicly supported an aggressive response against Russia and denounced "naive libertarians, who think I'm like them because they like my books." Taleb wrote in Antifragile and in scientific papers that if the statistical structure of habits in modern society differ too greatly from the ancestral environment of humanity,

6858-826: The Group and revenue opportunities for businesses within the bank. UBS maintains a leading position in the retail and corporate loan market in Switzerland; in fact, it serves one in three pension funds , more than 85% of the 1,000 largest Swiss corporations and 85% of banks that resides within the nation. In 2015, 2017 and 2018, the international financial magazine Euromoney named UBS "Best Domestic Cash Manager Switzerland". As of 31 December 2018, its lending portfolio reached US$ 131 billion (~$ 157 billion in 2023). The products that this UBS division offers range from cash accounts , payments, savings and retirement plans to investment fund products, residential mortgages and advisory services. This business division constitutes

6985-543: The Middle East after Venezuela (60,000). According to some estimates there are about 30,000 to 50,000 Druzes in the United States, with the largest concentration in Southern California . Most Druze immigrated to the U.S. from Lebanon and Syria. Dearborn, Michigan has the highest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States, at over 40%. The rest of Metro Detroit has an even larger population of Lebanese residents. Brooklyn, New York has one of

7112-603: The NYSE and SIX Swiss Exchange. Upon application and with effect as of 14 January 2015, the shares of UBS AG, the subsidiary of the UBS Group AG, were delisted from the NYSE. As of September 2019, the largest institutional shareholders are: As of 30 June 2018, the geographical distribution of the shareholders presents itself as follows: As of June 2018, UBS's corporate structure includes four divisions in total, namely: Starting on 9 June 2003, all UBS business groups, including UBS Paine Webber and UBS Warburg, were rebranded under

7239-793: The SBC part was dropped from the name; in 2000 when the new UBS got restructured the Dillon Read name was dropped, although it was brought back in 2005 as Dillon Read Capital Management , UBS's ill-fated hedge fund operations. The Union Bank of Switzerland emerged in 1912 when the Bank in Winterthur fused with the Toggenburger Bank . The Bank in Winterthur, founded in 1862 with an initial share capital of CHF 5 million, focused on providing financing for industry and other companies, and had profited considerably from its close railroad connections and large warehousing facilities during

7366-638: The Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC), the two merged in 1998 to create a single company known solely as "UBS". The agreement to merge had been made the previous year at a meeting of the Institut International d’Etudes Bancaires , a secretive club for European banking CEOs. UBS does not stand for Union Bank of Switzerland. The name 'UBS' came from one of its predecessor firms - the Union Bank of Switzerland. However, just like other prominent brands which used to be an abbreviation of

7493-400: The U.S. Federal Reserve . UBS was founded in 1862 as the Bank in Winterthur . This development came with the formation of the series of modern Swiss Grossbanken (big banks) in the latter part of the 19th century. The name of the bank was derived from the town of Winterthur , which served as Switzerland's industrial hub in the 19th century. By 1854, six private bankers in Basel founded

7620-455: The UBS moniker following company's start of operations as a unified global entity. UBS's global wealth management advisory division offers high-net-worth individuals around the world a range of advisory and investment products and services. As of the end of 2016, UBS Wealth Management's invested assets totalled CHF 977billion. The whole companies assets under management (AUM) amounted to US$ 1,737.5 billion in 2015, representing

7747-635: The United States at Wikimedia Commons UBS AG UBS Group AG is a multinational investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland . Headquartered simultaneously in Zürich and Basel , it maintains a presence in all major financial centres as the largest Swiss banking institution and the largest private bank in the world. UBS investment bankers and private bankers are known for their strict bank–client confidentiality and culture of banking secrecy . Because of

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7874-524: The United States in 1991 with Chase Investors Management Corporation, the asset management business of Chase Manhattan Bank . At the time of the acquisition, the business managed in excess of US$ 30 billion in assets. The bank's investments had been in the conservative asset management and life insurance businesses; further, 60% of the bank's profits came from its even more conservative Swiss banking operations. In 1993, Credit Suisse outbid Union Bank of Switzerland for Switzerland's Swiss Volksbank ,

8001-469: The United States were respectively ranked first and second on the 2018 Financial Secrecy Index . As of December 2023, UBS is the seventh largest bank in Europe with total assets worth over €1.554 trillion. It is one of the eight global " Bulge Bracket " banks. It has over CHF  3.2 trillion in assets under management (AUM), approximately CHF 2.8 trillion of which are invested assets. In June 2017, its return on invested capital

8128-560: The World Economic Forum at Davos, calling it the "International Association of Namedroppers" and stating "they think it's their mission to solve a problem they don't understand." Incerto is a group of works by Taleb as philosophical essays on uncertainty. It was bundled into a group of four works in November 2016 ISBN   978-0399590450 . A fifth book, Skin in the Game , was published in February 2018. This fifth book

8255-555: The acquisition of American brokerage firm, Paine Webber . Colloquially referred to as the "New UBS" to distinguish itself from the former Union Bank of Switzerland, the combined bank became the second largest in the world at the time, behind only the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi . Additionally, the merger pulled together the banks' various asset management businesses to create the world's largest money manager, with approximately US$ 910 billion in assets under management . Union Bank of Switzerland's Mathis Cabiallavetta became chairman of

8382-404: The aim to generate systematic products and services for clients, in 2017, UBS integrated Equities, Fixed Income and Solutions capabilities and hedge funds business within a new area named Investments. UBS also formed a new area of business named Real Estate and Private Markets by combining their Global Real Estate and Infrastructure and Private Equity businesses. In February 2017, UBS Group AG and

8509-459: The analysis of consumption should focus less on composition and more on frequency. In other words, studies that ignore the random nature of supply of nutrients are invalid. Taleb co-authored a paper with Yaneer Bar-Yam and Joseph Norman called Systemic risk of pandemic via novel pathogens – Coronavirus: A note . The paper, published on 26 January 2020, took the position that the SARS-CoV-2

8636-477: The assets under administration were US$ 413 billion. With around 2,300 employees in 23 countries, UBS Asset Management is the largest mutual fund manager in Switzerland, a leading fund house in Europe, and one of the largest hedge funds and real estate investment managers in the world. It has main offices in Chicago , Hong Kong , London , New York , Singapore , Sydney , Tokyo , and Zürich . With

8763-658: The bank reoriented itself around wealth management advisory services and limited its sell side operations. Capital ownership of UBS by country of origin as of 2014: UBS is a joint-stock company ( Aktiengesellschaft ) pursuant to Swiss laws. Its shares are listed at the SIX Swiss Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). As of December 2020, UBS is present in all major financial centres worldwide, having offices in 50 countries, with about 30% of its approx. 73,000 employees working in

8890-487: The bank's large positions in the Americas , EMEA and Asia Pacific markets, the Financial Stability Board considers it a global systemically important bank . Apart from private banking, UBS provides wealth management , asset management and investment banking services for private, corporate and institutional clients with international service. UBS manages the largest amount of private wealth in

9017-480: The bank's other major recruits during this period were Olivier Sarkozy , Ben Lorello, Blair Effron , and Jeff McDermott. By 2003, UBS had risen to fourth place from seventh in global investment banking fees, earning US$ 2.1 billion of the US$ 39 ;billion paid to investment banks that year, increasing 33%. Over the next four years, UBS consistently ranked in the top 4 in the global fee pool and established

9144-417: The build-out of UBS's investment banking operation in the United States. Within weeks of joining, Moelis brought over a team of 70 bankers from Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. Costas and Moelis hired more than 30 senior U.S. bankers from 2001 through 2004. It was estimated that UBS spent as much as US$ 600 million to US$ 700 million hiring top bankers in the U.S. during this three-year period. Among

9271-693: The closure of its Dillon Read Capital Management (DRCM) division. Although in 2006, DCRM had generated a profit for the bank of US$ 720 million, after UBS took over DRCM's positions in May 2007, losses grew from the US$ 124 ;million recorded by DRCM, ultimately to "16% of the US$ 19 billion in losses UBS recorded." The UBS investment bank continued to expand subprime risk in the second quarter of 2007 while most market participants were reducing risk, resulting in not only expanding DRCM losses but creating 84% of

9398-421: The combination of three major asset management operations: UBS Asset Management, Phillips & Drew (owned by Union Bank of Switzerland ), and Brinson Partners (owned by SBC). The investment teams were merged in 2000 and in 2002 the brands were consolidated to become UBS Global Asset Management . At the end of December 2018, UBS Asset Management was responsible for US$ 781 billion of invested assets and

9525-532: The continuous transformation of their platform is due to a major efficiency, effectiveness and geographical dislocation of the services offered by the bank. UBS's main competitors in this division are BlackRock , Vanguard Group , State Street Global Advisers (SSGA), Fidelity Investments and Allianz Asset Management (AAM). UBS Investment Bank provides services covering securities, other financial products, and research in equities , rates, credit , foreign exchange , precious metals and derivatives . As of

9652-556: The early 1960s. In 1960, Union Bank of Switzerland acquired an 80% stake in Argor SA, a Swiss precious metals refinery founded in 1951 in the canton of Ticino . UBS continues to issue gold bars via Argor-Heraeus which is famous for the unique kinebar holographic technology it uses to provide enhanced protection against bank gold bar counterfeiting . By 1962, Union Bank of Switzerland reached CHF 6.96 billion of assets, narrowly edging ahead of Swiss Bank Corporation to become

9779-511: The end of December 2018, the personnel employed at UBS Investment Bank totalled 5,205, present in 33 countries (with principal offices in Chicago, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, New York, Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo and Zurich). This business division also advises and provides access to capital markets for corporate and institutional clients, governments, financial intermediaries, alternative asset managers, and private investors. UBS Investment Bank

9906-500: The end of World War II, Union Bank of Switzerland completed the acquisition of the Eidgenössische Bank , a large Zürich-based bank that became insolvent . As a result of the merger, Union Bank of Switzerland exceeded CHF 1 billion in assets and moved its operations to Zürich. UBS opened branches and acquired a series of banks in Switzerland in the following years, growing from 31 offices in 1950 to 81 offices by

10033-580: The end of the 1950s and doubled assets again in the mid-1960s, exceeding CHF 10 billion by 1965. In 1961, SBC acquired Banque Populaire Valaisanne , based in Sion, Switzerland , and the Banque Populaire de Sierre . The bank opened a full branch office in Tokyo in 1970. In 1992, SBC acquired O'Connor & Associates , a Chicago-based options trading firm and the largest market maker in

10160-454: The error of comparing real-world randomness with the "structured randomness" in quantum physics (where probabilities are computable) or games of chance such as casino gambling, in which the probabilities are purposefully constructed by casino management. Taleb calls this the " ludic fallacy ". He argues that predictive models suffer from Platonism , gravitating towards mathematical purity and failing to take certain key ideas into account such as

10287-530: The fifth largest bank in Switzerland which had run into financial difficulties in the early 1990s. The acquisition propelled Credit Suisse ahead of Union Bank of Switzerland as the largest bank in Switzerland for the first time. Prior to the merger with Swiss Bank Corporation, UBS purchased a group of smaller Swiss banks in 1994 including the Cantonal Bank of Appenzell-Ausserrhoden in 1996, and in 1997 Schröder, Münchmeyer, Hengst & Co. from Lloyds Bank

10414-796: The final third coming mainly from the Asia-Pacific region. With its headquarters in Switzerland, UBS Wealth Management is present in more than 40 countries with approximately 190 offices (100 of which are in Switzerland). As of the end of 2018, around 23,600 people worldwide were employed by Global Wealth Management. In Switzerland, UBS Swiss Bank provides a complete set of retail banking services that includes chequing , savings , credit cards , and mortgage products for individuals. They offer cash management and commercial banking services for small businesses and corporate clients as well. UBS global wealth management advisory operations in

10541-530: The finance industry and warned about financial crises , subsequently profiting from the Black Monday (1987) and the 2007–2008 financial crisis . He advocates what he calls a "black swan robust" society, meaning a society that can withstand difficult-to-predict events. He proposes what he has termed " antifragility " in systems; that is, an ability to benefit and grow from a certain class of random events, errors, and volatility, as well as "convex tinkering" as

10668-558: The finance industry—e.g., saying at Davos in 2009 that he was "happy" that Lehman Brothers collapsed—was followed by reports of threats and personal attacks. Taleb is known for his uncensored criticism of public figures and institutions. He has referred to former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair as "a very dishonourable fellow" and Blair's successor, Gordon Brown as "an idiot". He has criticized prominent economists like Larry Summers, Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, stating that "they cause more crises than they solve". He has also been critical of

10795-501: The financial crisis set in, other high-profile bankers such as Oliver Sarkozy in early 2008 and Ben Lorello in 2009. UBS was fined $ 100 million by the FED in 2004 for trading in dollars with Iran and other sanctioned countries. At the beginning of 2007, UBS became the first Wall Street firm to announce a heavy loss in the subprime mortgage sector as the subprime mortgage crisis began to develop. In May 2007, UBS announced

10922-503: The financial options exchanges in the U.S. O'Connor was combined with SBC's money market , capital market , and currency market activities to form a globally integrated capital markets and treasury operation . In 1994, SBC acquired Brinson Partners , an asset management firm focused on providing access for U.S. institutions to global markets, for US$ 750 million. Following the acquisition, founder Gary P. Brinson ran SBC's asset management business and later when SBC merged with UBS

11049-481: The immigrants were Christians. Upon entering America, many of them worked as peddlers. The first wave continued until the 1920s. Many immigrants settled in northern New Jersey , in towns such as Bloomfield , Paterson , Newark , and Orange . Some immigrants set out west, with places such as Detroit , Cleveland , Toledo , and Peoria gaining a large number of all Lebanese immigrants. Others bought farms in states like Texas , South Dakota , and Iowa . Many came via

11176-492: The impossibility of possessing all relevant information; that small unknown variations in the data can have a huge impact; and flawed theories/models based on empirical data and that fail to consider events that have not taken place but could take place. Discussing the ludic fallacy in The Black Swan , he writes, "The dark side of the moon is harder to see; beaming light on it costs energy. In the same way, beaming light on

11303-638: The insults to get the "important philosophic and mathematical truths." Taleb replied in the second edition of The Black Swan that "One of the most common (but useless) comments I hear is that some solutions can come from 'robust statistics.' I wonder how using these techniques can create information where there is none". In 2007, Westfall and Hilbe complained that Taleb's criticism is "often unfounded and sometimes outrageous." Taleb, writes John Kay , "describes writers and professionals as knaves or fools, mostly fools ... Yet beneath his rage and mockery are serious issues. The risk management models in use today exclude

11430-400: The largest bank in Switzerland. The rapid growth was punctuated by the 1967 acquisition of Interhandel , which made UBS one of the strongest banks in Europe. By the 1980s, Union Bank of Switzerland established a position as a leading European underwriter of Eurobonds . Following two major acquisitions in 1986 ( Phillips & Drew and Deutsche Länderbank ), UBS made its first purchase in

11557-517: The late 1960s. Among the minority, there are Shia and Sunni Muslim communities. A number of Jews fled Lebanon for the United States due to fears of persecution, and populations of Druze and atheists also exist. This information has been distributed by all American organizations, including the Arab American Institute and the United States census team. The United States is the second largest home of Druze communities outside

11684-489: The local markets and into one of the ten global leaders in the sector. At the end of the transaction, completed in October 2017, the American company will administrate a total of CHF 420 billion in assets. UBS Asset Management will continue anyway to offer Management Company, White Labelling and Representative Services to its clients. Ulrich Körner , president of the UBS Asset Management, affirms that

11811-570: The market downturn in 2000, at the end of the dot com bubble and burst , Empirica's Empirica Kurtosis LLC fund was reported to have made a 56.86% return. Taleb's investing strategies continued to be highly successful during the Nasdaq dive in 2000 Several consecutive years of low market volatility and less spectacular returns followed, and Empirica closed in 2004. In 2007, Taleb joined his former Empirica partner, Mark Spitznagel , as an adviser to Universa Investments , an asset management company based on

11938-408: The merger. On 3 November 2000, UBS merged with Paine Webber , an American stock brokerage and asset management firm led by chairman and CEO Donald Marron . At the time of its merger with UBS, Paine Webber had emerged as the fourth largest private client firm in the United States with 385 offices employing 8,554 brokers . The acquisition pushed UBS to the top wealth and asset management firm in

12065-402: The most effective (that is, least fragile) risk management approach: what he calls the " barbell strategy " which is based on avoiding the middle in favor of linear combination of extremes, across all domains from politics to economics to one's personal life. These are deemed by Taleb to be more robust to estimation errors. For instance, he suggests that investing money in 'medium risk' investments

12192-430: The new bank while Swiss Bank's Marcel Ospel was named chief executive officer . Nearly 80% of the top management positions were filled by legacy Swiss Bank professionals. Prior to the merger, Swiss Bank Corporation was considered to be further along than Union Bank of Switzerland in developing its international investment banking business, particularly in the higher margin advisory businesses where Warburg Dillon Read

12319-566: The oldest Lebanese populations in America, dating over 125 years; one large center is in the Bay Ridge section. Once predominantly Christian, the Lebanese in Bay Ridge are today equally split between Muslims and Christians. South Paterson , New Jersey historically had a large Lebanese Christian population dating back to the 1890s, but only a few remain, and the neighborhood has largely been replaced by Palestinian immigrants. Brooklyn holds

12446-482: The onset of World War I , in which the bank lost investments in a number of large industrial companies. By the end of 1918, the bank had recovered and surpassed CHF 1 billion in total assets and grew to 2,000 employees by 1920. The impact of the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression was severe, particularly as the Swiss franc suffered major devaluation in 1936. The bank saw its assets fall from

12573-555: The outbreak of the war, SBC made the timely decision to open an office in New York City. The office, located in the Equitable Building , was able to begin operations a few weeks after the outbreak of the war and was intended as a safe place to store assets in the case of an invasion. During the war, the banks' traditional business fell off and the Swiss government became their largest client. In 1945, SBC acquired

12700-399: The problem statistical undecidability (Douady and Taleb, 2010). Taleb has described his main challenge as mapping his ideas of "robustification" and " antifragility ", that is, how to live and act in a world we do not understand and build robustness to black swan events. Taleb introduced the idea of the "fourth quadrant" in the exposure domain. One of its applications is in his definition of

12827-461: The professional statistician will find the book ubiquitously naive." However, Lund acknowledges that "there are many points where I agree with Taleb," and writes that "the book is a must" for anyone "remotely interested in finance and/or philosophical probability." Taleb and Nobel laureate Myron Scholes have traded personal attacks, particularly after Taleb's paper with Espen Gaarder Haug  [ no ] , in which Taleb alleged that nobody uses

12954-679: The region sprouted from the diaspora of the surrounding countries. There are more Lebanese outside Lebanon today than within. The first known Lebanese immigrant to the United States was Antonio Bishallany, a Maronite Christian, who arrived in Boston Harbor in 1854. He died in Brooklyn , New York in 1856 on his 29th birthday. Large scale-Lebanese immigration began in the late 19th century and settled mainly in Brooklyn and Boston , Massachusetts . They were marked as Syrians; almost all of

13081-449: The replacement of Union Bank of Switzerland's chairman, Robert Studer with Mathis Cabiallavetta, one of the key architects of the merger with Swiss Bank Corporation . On 8 December 1997, Union Bank of Switzerland and Swiss Bank Corporation announced an all-stock merger. At the time of the merger, Union Bank of Switzerland and Swiss Bank Corporation were the second and third largest banks in Switzerland, respectively. Discussions between

13208-402: The total belong to individuals with net worth between CHF 1 million and CHF 10 million and the last 10% of total assets belong to individuals with a net worth of less than CHF 1 million. UBS offers brokerage services and products as well as asset management and other investment advisory and portfolio management products and services. Additionally, UBS provides

13335-521: The trading floor covers 9,600-square-metre (103,000 sq ft) with 12-metre (40 ft) arched ceilings. Over US$ 1 trillion in assets are traded here every trading day. In June 2011, it was announced that UBS was considering moving its North American headquarters back to New York City, and that the bank was looking for office spaces in Midtown and in the rebuilt World Trade Center . UBS's main competitors in this division are fellow members of

13462-441: The two banks had begun several months earlier, less than a year after rebuffing Credit Suisse's merger overtures. The merger resulted in the creation of UBS AG, a new bank with total assets of more than US$ 590 billion (~$ 1.04 trillion in 2023), the largest of its kind. During the merger, UBS chairman Marcel Ospel originally wanted to call the company "United Bank of Switzerland", but settled on simply using "UBS" following

13589-440: The unseen is costly, in both computational and mental effort." In the second edition of The Black Swan , he posited that the foundations of quantitative economics are faulty and highly self-referential. He states that statistics is fundamentally incomplete as a field, as it cannot predict the risk of rare events, a problem that is acute in proportion to the rarity of these events. With the mathematician Raphael Douady , he called

13716-485: The very events against which they claim to protect the businesses that employ them. These models import a veneer of technical sophistication ... " Berkeley statistician David Freedman said that efforts by statisticians to refute Taleb's stance have been unconvincing. Taleb contends that statisticians can be pseudoscientists when it comes to risks of rare events and risks of blowups, and mask their incompetence with complicated equations. This stance has attracted criticism:

13843-429: The war, when it was demonstrated that UBS likely took active roles in trading stolen gold, securities , and other assets during World War II. The issue of "unclaimed property" of Holocaust victims became a major issue for UBS in the mid-1990s, and a series of revelations in 1997 brought the issue to the forefront of national attention in 1996 and 1997. UBS confirmed that a large number of accounts had gone unclaimed as

13970-441: The world". Daniel Kahneman proposed the inclusion of Taleb's name among the world's top intellectuals, saying "Taleb has changed the way many people think about uncertainty, particularly in the financial markets. His book, The Black Swan , is an original and audacious analysis of the ways in which humans try to make sense of unexpected events." A book of aphorisms , The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms ,

14097-592: The world, counting approximately half of The World's Billionaires among its clients. UBS also maintains a global investment bank and is considered a primary market maker . The bank also maintains numerous underground bank vaults , bunkers and storage facilities for gold bars around the Swiss Alps and internationally. Partly due to its banking secrecy, it has been at the centre of numerous tax avoidance investigations undertaken by U.S., French, German, Israeli and Belgian authorities. UBS operations in Switzerland and

14224-470: The world. Initially, the business was given the divisional name UBS PaineWebber but in 2003 the 123-year-old name Paine Webber disappeared when it was renamed UBS Wealth Management USA . UBS took a CHF 1 billion write-down for the loss of goodwill associated with the retirement of the Paine Webber brand when it integrated its brands under the unified UBS name in 2003. John P. Costas ,

14351-773: The wrong map of reality, rather than no map at all. He opposes most economic and grand social science theorizing, which in his view, suffers acutely from the problem of overuse of Plato's theory of forms . He has also proposed that biological, economic, and other systems exhibit an ability to benefit and grow from volatility—including particular types of random errors and events—a characteristic of these systems that he terms antifragility . Relatedly, he also believes that universities are better at public relations and claiming credit than generating knowledge. He argues that knowledge and technology are usually generated by what he calls " stochastic tinkering" rather than by top-down directed research, and has proposed option-like experimentation as

14478-618: The years 1885 and 1886, when the bank merged with the Zürcher Bankverein and acquired the Basler Depositenbank and the Schweizerische Unionbank, it changed its name to Schweizerischer Bankverein . The English name of the bank was originally Swiss Bankverein, but was changed to Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC) in 1917. SBC subsequently experienced a period of growth, which was only interrupted by

14605-586: Was 11.1%, followed by Goldman Sachs ' 9.35%, and JPMorgan Chase 's 9.456%. UBS acquired rival Credit Suisse in an emergency rescue deal brokered by the Swiss government and its Central bank in 2023, following which UBS' AUM increased to over $ 5 trillion along with an increased balanced sheet of $ 1.6 trillion. In late 2016, UBS established a blockchain technology research lab in London to advance its cyber security and encryption of client activities. Based on regional deal flow and political influence, UBS

14732-765: Was a Distinguished Research Scholar at the Said Business School BT Center, University of Oxford from 2009 to 2013. Taleb also held positions at NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences , the University of Massachusetts Amherst , and the London Business School . Taleb is Co-Editor in Chief of the academic journal Risk and Decision Analysis since September 2014, jointly teaches regular courses with Paul Wilmott in London, and occasionally participates in teaching courses toward

14859-509: Was acquired to improve access to the German investment banking and private wealth management markets. During the mid-1990s, Union Bank of Switzerland came under fire from dissident shareholders critical of its conservative management and lower return on equity. Martin Ebner, through his investment trust, BK Vision, became the largest shareholder in Union Bank of Switzerland and attempted to force

14986-561: Was changed to Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) to mirror its French name, Union de Banques Suisses . In German, the bank was known as the Schweizerische Bankgesellschaft (SBG). The combined bank had total assets of CHF 202 million and a total shareholders' equity of CHF 46 million. In 1917, UBS completed the construction of a new headquarters in Zurich on Bahnhofstrasse , considered to be

15113-415: Was considered to be the more established platform. Union Bank of Switzerland had a stronger retail and commercial banking business in Switzerland, while both banks had strong asset management capabilities. After the merger was completed, it was speculated that a series of losses suffered by UBS on its equity derivative positions in late 1997 was a contributing factor in pushing UBS management to consummate

15240-580: Was establishing itself as a major player on Wall Street with the acquisition of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette in 2000, Costas shifted the growth strategy from acquiring entire firms to hiring individual investment bankers or teams of bankers from rival firms. Costas had followed a similar approach in building out the UBS fixed income business, hiring over 500 sales and trading personnel and increasing revenues from US$ 300 million in 1998 to over US$ 3 billion by 2001. The arrival of former Drexel Burnham Lambert investment banker Ken Moelis marked

15367-630: Was formerly known as UBS Warburg and as Warburg Dillon Read , before the merger of the Union Bank of Switzerland and the Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC). Within the UBS Investment Bank division, the Investment Banking Department (IBD) provides a range of advisory and underwriting services including mergers and acquisitions , restructuring , equity offerings , investment grade and high yield debt offerings, leveraged finance and leveraged loan structuring, and

15494-682: Was leaving the company, and shortly thereafter founded a new business, Moelis & Company . As he had when joining UBS, Moelis took a large team of senior UBS investment bankers. Moelis's departure was caused primarily by repeated conflict over the availability of capital from the bank's balance sheet to pursue large transactions , particularly leveraged buyouts . The bank's apparent conservatism would be turned on its head when large losses were reported in various mortgage securities rather than corporate loans that generated investment banking fees. After Moelis, other notable departures included investment banking co-head Jeff McDermott in early 2007 and, as

15621-435: Was named chief investment officer of UBS Asset Management. The acquisition of S.G. Warburg & Co. , a leading British investment banking firm, in 1995 for the price of US$ 1.4 billion (~$ 2.56 billion in 2023) signified a major push into investment banking. S.G. Warburg & Co. had established a reputation as a daring merchant bank that grew to be one of the most respected investment banks in London . However,

15748-585: Was named "Best Bank for Wealth Management in North America" at the Euromoney Awards for Excellence 2017. UBS's main competitors in this division are Bank of America , Morgan Stanley , JP Morgan Chase , Wells Fargo and Charles Schwab . UBS's Personal & Corporate Banking division delivers financial products and services to retail, corporate and institutional clients in Switzerland. It also provides stable and substantial profits for

15875-405: Was not being taken seriously enough by policy makers and medical professionals. Aaron Brown , a quantitative analyst and adjunct professor , said regarding The Black Swan that "the book reads as if Taleb has never heard of nonparametric methods , data analysis , visualization tools or robust estimation ." Nonetheless, he calls the book "essential reading" and urges statisticians to overlook

16002-542: Was published in 2007, selling close to three million copies, as of February 2011. It spent 36 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list , 17 as hardcover and 19 weeks as paperback, and was translated into 50 languages. The book has been credited with predicting the 2007–2008 financial crisis . In a 2008 article in The Times , journalist Bryan Appleyard described Taleb as "the hottest thinker in

16129-553: Was released in December 2010. Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder was published in November 2012 and Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life was published in February 2018. Taleb's five volume philosophical essay on uncertainty, titled Incerto , includes Fooled by Randomness (2001), The Black Swan (2007–2010), The Bed of Procrustes (2010), Antifragile (2012), and Skin in

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