UBS is restricting employees' travel in China and implementing a work-from-home policy as the coronavirus has spread
- UBS is restricting employees' travel to, from, and within China amid the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.
- It's also implemented a global work-from-home policy for staff returning from the Hubei Province, according to a person familiar with the firm's policy.
- UBS has a sizeable presence across the Asia Pacific. In its flagship wealth management business, some 1,000 of its 10,000 financial advisers are based in the wider Asia Pacific region, overseeing $450 billion.
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UBS is restricting employees' non-essential travel to, from, and within China amid the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, according to a person familiar with the firm's policy.
The Swiss bank has also implemented a work-from-home policy for any staff globally who have traveled to Hubei Province, where Wuhan is located, the person said. UBS is requesting that staffers who have traveled there, or have been in contact with someone who has the virus, to work from home for two weeks from their return date.
Its branches in China, which are in the country's capital of Beijing as well as in Shanghai, are open on a limited basis, the person said.
The policies come as multinational financial services firms have taken precaution around the coronavirus outbreak, which has also spread outside of China.
The Swiss bank Credit Suisse told Hong Kong staff in late January to work from home and "not come into its headquarters in the International Commerce Center tower if they have visited the mainland in the last 14 days," the Financial Times reported.
The coronavirus death toll has reached more than 560, with more than 28,000 people infected, Business Insider reported on Thursday. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses which cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases, according to the World Health Organization.
UBS has a sizeable presence across the Asia Pacific. In its flagship wealth management business, some 1,000 of its 10,000 financial advisers are based in the wider Asia Pacific region.
In that region advisers oversee $450 billion of the unit's overall $2.6 trillion assets under management as of December 2019; the lion's share of its assets are in the Americas.
It's recently expanded its presence in China, the world's second-largest economy, with a headquarters in Beijing. Its Shanghai branch opened in 2016, and another branch in Beijing opened in 2014.
Other companies with multinational operations have warned investors that the coronavirus spread is impacting its financial results.
Shanghai-based Yum China, which says it's China's largest restaurant company and operates chains like KFC and Pizza Hut in the country, said alongside its quarterly earnings call on Wednesday that the coronavirus had caused around one-third of its stores to close temporarily.
