UBS's TMT bankers have their own special woes
Once upon a time, UBS had a world-class Technology, Media, and Telecommunications (TMT) investment banking team. This no longer seems to be the case.
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UBS's US investment banking business has issues that we've already catalogued. But its TMT team may have more issues than most. Market intelligence firm Dealogic says that in the last six years, the market share of UBS's TMT business has gone from 7.4% to 1.9%. UBS's TMT banking revenues went from $751m to $187m over that period.
The decline coincides with a period of churn in which some of UBS's top TMT bankers left while others arrived. In total, UBS is thought to have lost at least seven senior leaders from its TMT team in the past four years. At least 20 were hired in turn, including those brought in from Credit Suisse post-merger.
The exits include Jason Auerbach, who was at UBS from 2016 to 2021, and was co-head of its entire TMT investment banking practice. When Auerbach left for SVB, he was replaced by Paul Crisci – who also joined the bank in 2016 – and by Ryan Lund, who was brought in almost immediately after Auerbach’s departure. Both have since left UBS – Crisci in 2023, and Lund in 2024.
Other departures include head of internet banking Richard Space, head of media and entertainment Aly Alibhai, and head of cybersecurity banking Gurinder Sidhu.
The arrivals into the TMT team form a much longer list. At the top they include global head of software banking Steve Pettigrew, vice chairman of tech banking Richard Hardegree, Americas head of media and telecoms M&A Evan Raine, US head of M&A Taylor Henricks, and head of Americas ECM Gregor Feige.
Conversely, MDs that have joined the TMT team include Pete Contrucci, Alejandro Palacio, Sean Lynch, Ananya Das, Jason Williams, William Burns, Andrew Jardine, Dmitri Anissimov, Dmitry Kokhanov, Ryan Critchfield, David Larsen, Rob Michlovich, and Brian DeLeo.
Declining market share for UBS's TMT team doesn't exactly align with the comings and goings of its senior TMT bankers. Market share peaked in 2020, a year before Auerbach actually left. It briefly recovered in 2024, coincident with the addition of Hardegree and Braham, but has slumped again this year.
The tribulations of UBS's TMT team partly match those of its wider investment banking business. As we reported today, investment banking revenue was down by 25% in the first half of this year. Over the past five years, the Swiss bank's investment banking revenues have fluctuated significantly, from $1.7bn in the first half of 2021 to $754m in the first half of 2023.
The question now is whether the recent hires can revive TMT's fortunes. Some UBS insiders have also raised questions about multiple hires in the Menlo Park office, where UBS has added at least five people since 2021, without seemingly achieving an increase in market share. The new faces in Menlo Park include Sean Lynch, Laurence Braham, John Carr, Shakti Thakur, Jonathan Romero, and Richard Hardegree.
There is suspicion that the Menlo Park office is a formality and that its senior bankers enjoy working from home. However, it's not unheard of for banks to situate managing directors close to clients, like Facebook, which also happens to be in the city. San Francisco-based UBS juniors are supporting the Menlo MDs.
UBS declined to comment.
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