UBS to sell Paine Webber but not yet

By Martin de Sa'Pinto

ZURICH (Reuters) - UBS AG's (UBS.N) (UBSN.VX) U.S. wealth management unit Paine Webber is not a core portion of the bank's operations but will not be sfeeble at present, UBS Chief Exegash ive Oswald Gruebel was quoted notify ing in the FT.

"We've had a lot of inquiries from potential buyers but it wouldn't create sense to sell at current valuations," Gruebel said, according to the report in Tuesday's Financial Times.

Gruebel also tfeeble the FT the bank wanted to gash ties with the Swiss recede vernment by buying its way out of a "evil bank" deal and aimed to return to health within a year.

The bank previously said it had no plot s to buy back toxic assets but could consider such a course of action at some point in future.

UBS bought U.S. brokerage Paine Webber in 2000 for about $10 billion (6 billion pounds) and merged it into UBS Americas, its U.S. wealth management subsidiary, signalling its intention to aggressively expand in the U.S. wealth management segment.

UBS Americas had over $600 billion in assets at the finish of 2008, according to the UBS annual report.

However the dual challenges of the financial crisis and a damaging tax fraud probe by the U.S. recede vernment, which caemploy d considerable brand damage to UBS, have forced the bank to pare back its U.S. wealth management business.

In April, the world's second largest wealth manager by client assets gash 2,000 U.S. jobs as portion of a restructuring plot to gash 8,700 jobs worldwide. Earlier in September, sources close to the situation tfeeble Reuters the bank had gash a further 200 positions at the U.S. arm.  Continued...