University of British Columbia

University of British Columbia, UBC,  is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley. UBC operates smaller speciality and satellite campuses located at Great Northern Way Campus (Digital Media) and Robson Street (Continuing Studies, Business, Law, Public Health), both in Vancouver proper. The 4.02-square-kilometre (993-acre) main campus is located directly west of the University Endowment Lands, an unincorporated community on Point Grey, a peninsula about 10 km (6.2 mi) from downtown Vancouver. The 2.09-square-kilometre (516-acre) Okanagan campus is situated about 20 minutes from downtown Kelowna.
While the originating legislation created UBC on March 7, 1908, the first day of lectures was September 30, 1915. On September 22, 1925, lectures began on the new Point Grey campus. The enabling legislation are the University Act and the University Amendment Act, 2004. The university is the oldest in British Columbia and has the largest enrolment with over 54,000 students at its Vancouver and Okanagan campuses combined. The university library, which comprises 5.9 million books and journals, is the second-largest research library in Canada.
The University of British Columbia is ranked second in Canada and 37th worldwide in the Academic Ranking of World Universities, second in Canada and 22nd worldwide in the Times Higher Education rankings, third in Canada and 51st globally in the QS World University Rankings, and second in Canada and eighth overall in Newsweek's ranking of top universities outside of the United States . Additionally, the university has been affiliated with five Nobel laureates.



History


Establishment of a provincial university

The chemistry building, one of UBC's oldest,
 on a summer evening

The University of British Columbia was founded on March 7, 1908 as a branch of McGill University.  A provincial university was first called into being by the British Columbia University Act of 1908, although its location was not yet specified. The governance was modelled on the provincial University of Toronto Act of 1906 which established a bicameral system of university government consisting of a senate (faculty), responsible for academic policy, and a board of governors (citizens) exercising exclusive control over financial policy and having formal authority in all other matters. The president, appointed by the board, was to provide a link between the two bodies and to perform institutional leadership. The Act constituted a twenty-one member senate with Francis Carter-Cotton of Vancouver as Chancellor.
Before the University Act, there had been several attempts at establishing a degree-granting university with assistance from the Universities of Toronto and McGill. Columbian College in New Westminster, through its affiliation with Victoria College of the University of Toronto, began to offer university-level credit at the turn-of-the-century, but it was McGill that would come to dominate higher education in the early 1900s.

Henry Marshall Tory

Building on a successful affiliation between Vancouver and Victoria high schools with McGill University, Henry Marshall Tory helped to establish the McGill University College of British Columbia. From 1906 to 1915 McGill BC (as it was called) operated as a private institution providing the first few years toward a degree at McGill University or elsewhere. The Henry Marshall Tory Medal was established in 1941 by Henry Marshall Tory (1864–1947), FRSC, founding President of the University of Alberta and of the National Research Council of Canada, and a co-founder of Carlton University.
In the meantime, appeals were again made to the government to revive the earlier legislation for a provincial institution, leading to the University Endowment Act in 1907, and The University Act in 1908. In 1910 the Point Grey site was chosen, and the government appointed Dr. Frank Fairchild Wesbrook as President in 1913. A declining economy and the outbreak of war in August 1914 compelled the University to postpone plans for building at Point Grey, and instead the former McGill University College site at Fairview became home to the University until 1925. The first day of lectures was September 30, 1915, the new independing university absorbing McGill University College. University of British Columbia awarded its first degrees in 1916.




Early years

The UBC Vancouver school of theology was built in 1927.

The brick and mortar section of the Irving K. Barber library here (formerly the Main Library) on UBC's Vancouver campus was first built in 1925.
World War I dominated campus life, and the student body was "decimated" by enlistments for active service, with three hundred UBC students in Company "D" alone. By the end of the war, 697 members of the University had enlisted. A total of 109 students graduated in the three war-time congregations, all but one in the Faculty of Arts and Science.
By 1920, the university had only three faculties: Arts, Applied Science, and Agriculture (with Departments of Agronomy, Animal Husbandry, Dairying, Horticulture and Poultry). It only awarded the degrees of Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Bachelor of Applied Science (B.A.Sc.), and Bachelor of Science in Agriculture (B.S.A.). There were 576 male students and 386 female students in the 1920–21 winter session, but only 64 academic staff, including 6 women.
In the early part of the twentieth century, professional education expanded beyond the traditional fields of theology, law and medicine. UBC provided no degrees in these areas, but was beginning to offer degrees in new professional areas such as engineering, agriculture, nursing, and school teaching. Graduate training based on the German-inspired American model of specialized course work and the completion of a research thesis was introduced, with students completing M.A. degrees in natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities.
In 1922 the now twelve-hundred-strong student body embarked on a "Build the University" campaign. Students marched in the streets of Vancouver to draw attention to their plight, enlist popular support, and embarrass the government. Fifty-six thousand signatures were presented at legislature in support of the campaign, which was ultimately successful. On September 22, 1925, lectures began on the new Point Grey campus. Except for the Library, Science and Power House buildings, all the campus buildings were temporary constructions. Two playing fields were built by the students themselves, but the University had no dormitories and no social centre. Still, the University continued to grow steadily.

View of the north part of the Point Grey Campus.

Soon, however, the effects of the depression began to be felt. The provincial government, upon which the University depended heavily, cut the annual grant severely. In 1932–33 salaries were cut by up to 23%. Posts remained vacant, and a few faculty lost their jobs. Most graduate courses were dropped. In 1935, the University established the Department of Extension. Just as things began to improve, World War II broke out. Canada declared war on September 10, 1939. Soon afterwards, University President Klinck wrote:
From the day of the declaration of war, the University has been prepared to put at the disposal of the Government all possible assistance by way of laboratories, equipment and trained personnel, insofar as such action is consistent with the maintenance of reasonably efficient instructional standards. To do less would be unthinkable.

View of the UBC War Memorial Gym

Heavy rains and melting snowfall eroded a deep ravine across the north end of the campus, in the Grand Campus Washout of 1935. The campus did not yet have storm drains, and surface runoff went down a ravine to the beach. When the University carved a ditch to drain flooding on University Avenue, the rush of water steepened the ravine and eroded it back as fast as 10 feet (3.0 m) per hour. The resulting gully eventually consumed 100,000 cubic yards (76,455 m3), two bridges, and buildings near Graham House.
The University was closed for 4½ days. Afterwards, the gully was filled with debris from a nearby landslide, and only traces are visible today.
Military training on the campus became popular, then mandatory. WWII marked the first provision of money from the federal government to the University for research purposes. By the end of the war, it became clear that the facilities at Point Grey had become totally inadequate to cater to the huge influx of veterans returning to their studies. The University needed new staff, new courses, new faculties, and new buildings for teaching and accommodation. The student population rose from 2,974 in 1944–45 to 9,374 in 1947–48. Surplus Army and Air Force camps were used for both classrooms and accommodation. Fifteen complete camps were taken over by the University in the course of the 1945–46 session alone, with a sixteenth camp situated on Little Mountain in Vancouver, converted into suites for married students. Most of the camps were dismantled and carried by barge or truck to the University where the huts were scattered across the campus. (A few huts remain in place today!)
Student numbers hit 9,374 in 1948; more than 53% of the students were war veterans in 1947–67. Between 1947 and 1951 twenty new permanent buildings were erected.
The War Memorial Hall (more generally known as Memorial Hall) and War Memorial Gym are landmark buildings on the campus of the University of British Columbia. The lecture hall, theatre and gym honour students who had enlisted and died in the First World War, and in the Second World War.
The single-university policy in the West was changed as existing colleges of the provincial universities gained autonomy as universities — the University of Victoria was established in 1963.
On February 10, 1964 Harvey Reginald MacMillan donated $8.2 million for postgraduate education to the university. 
The museum of anthropology at UBC was announced on July 1, 1971 by Prime Minister Trudeau. At a construction cost of $2.5 million, the museum building designed by Arthur Erickson opened in 1976.




The university today

University of British Columbia

UBC's current president is Dr. Stephen Toope, appointed on July 1, 2006. He succeeds Dr. Martha Piper, who was the University's first female president and the first non-Canadian born president. The Chancellor of the University, who acts as the University's ceremonial head and sits on the academic Senate and the Board of Governors, is Sarah Morgan-Silvester (as of July 1, 2008). The UBC Okanagan campus is led by Dr. Doug Owram, Deputy Vice-Chancellor. All three founding faculties remain, but the Faculty of Agriculture is now known as the Faculty of Land & Food Systems.


All about University of British Columbia:

• University of British Columbia
• UBC governance and academics
• UBC Campuses and features
• UBC Greek organizations

UBS

UBS AG,  is a Swiss global financial services company headquartered in Basel and Zürich, Switzerland, which provides investment banking, asset management, and wealth management services for private, corporate, and institutional clients worldwide, as well as retail clients in Switzerland. It operates in more than 40 countries and considered as the world's second largest manager of private wealth assets, with over CHF 2.2 trillion in invested assets. UBS operates in all of the major financial centers worldwide with offices in over 50 countries and 64,000 employees around the world. UBS traces its heritage, through its predecessors, to 1854.
UBS was originally an abbreviation for the Union Bank of Switzerland, one of its predecessors; however, UBS ceased to be considered a representational abbreviation after its 1998 merger with Swiss Bank Corporation.


Structure


UBS is present in all major financial centers worldwide, with about 37% of its 64,617 employees working in the Americas, 37% in Switzerland, 16% in the rest of Europe and 10% in Asia Pacific. UBS has a major presence in the United States, with its American headquarters located in New York City (Investment banking); Weehawken, New Jersey (Private Wealth Management); and Stamford, Connecticut (Sales & Trading).
On June 9, 2003, all UBS business groups rebranded under the UBS name as the company began operating as a unified global entity.




UBS Investment Bank


UBS Investment Bank, a bulge bracket bank, provides securities, other financial products, and research in equities, fixed income, rates, foreign exchange, precious metals and derivatives. Its 15,000 people across over 30 countries also advise and provide access to capital markets for corporate and institutional clients, governments, financial intermediaries, alternative asset managers and private investors.
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 the private placement of equity, debt, and derivatives.
American football fields it is the largest trading floor in the world. Following an expansion in 2002, the trading floor covers 103,000-square-foot (9,600 m2) with 40-foot (12 m) arched ceilings. Over $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 at office space in Midtown and in the rebuilt World Trade Center
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 Fixed Income, Currencies, and Commodities (FICC) (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, commodities, structured products and derivative products).
Since the early 2000s, UBS Investment Bank has been among the top fee generating investment banks globally. For 2010 UBS ranked No.5 globally in mergers & acquisitions advisory, No.5 globally in debt capital markets bookrunning, No.5 globally in follow-on equity offerings, No.3 in European follow-on equity offerings, No.1 in Asia M&A advisory, No.2 in Asian equity capital markets bookrunning, No.2 in Asian follow-on equity offerings, No.2 in Canadian M&A advisory, No.3 in Middle Eastern & African mergers & acquisitions advisory, and No.2 in Middle Eastern & African equity capital markets bookrunning. UBS also ranked No.1 on the 2010 M&A league tables in Australia, ahead of Macquarie Bank and Goldman Sachs.




UBS Global Asset Management


UBS Global Asset Management offers investment products in equities, fixed income, global diversified portfolios, alternative investments, quantitative investments, real estate, infrastructure and funds of funds for private clients, financial intermediaries, institutional investors and itself via proprietary trading.
The 1998 UBS-SBC merger and subsequent restructuring resulted in 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 as UBS Global Asset Management.
UBS is the second largest asset management firm in the world with over CHF 2.2 trillion in invested assets. With over 3,500 employees in 25 countries, UBS Global Asset Management is the largest mutual fund manager in Switzerland and the largest fund of hedge funds manager in the world. UBS Global Asset Management has major offices in London, Chicago, Frankfurt, Hartford, Hong Kong, New York, Paris, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto and Zurich.




UBS Wealth Management


UBS Wealth Management offers high net worth individuals a range of advisory and investment products and services supported by the firm's underwriting and research. Until 2009, UBS was considered the largest wealth manager globally.
UBS Wealth Management in the U.S. is an outgrowth of the former Paine Webber brokerage business. The business changed its name first to UBS Paine Webber in March 2001 after it was acquired by UBS. The subsidiary further changed its name to UBS Wealth Management USA in June 2003.
UBS Wealth Management employs more than 27,500 personnel in 44 countries. In the U.S., UBS Wealth Management employs more than 8,000 financial advisors. UBS also offers traditional Swiss bank services to its non-US clients.




UBS Swiss Bank


Within Switzerland, UBS Swiss Bank provides a complete set of retail banking services, including checking, savings, credit card and mortgage products, for individuals and cash management and commercial banking services for small businesses and corporate clients.


History


Merger of Union Bank of Switzerland and Swiss Bank Corporation


Union Bank of Switzerland logo. The historical UBS logo, introduced in 1966, featured a horizontal acronym "UBS" referring to the "Union Bank of Switzerland", "Union de Banques Suisses" or "Unione di Banche Svizzere". The vertical acronym "SBG" refers to the name of the bank in German "Schweizerische Bankgesellschaft"
During the mid-1990s, Union Bank of Switzerland came under fire from dissident shareholders, critical of bank's 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 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 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 December 8, 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 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 UBS AG, a huge new bank with total assets of more than $590 billion. Also 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 that 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 $910 billion in assets under management. The combined entity was originally to be called United Bank of Switzerland, but foreseeing a problem with United Bank Switzerland, opted for UBS.
The merger, which was billed as a merger of equals, resulted in Union Bank of Switzerland's shareholders receiving 60% of the combined company and Swiss Bank's shareholders receiving the remaining 40% of the bank's common shares. Union Bank of Switzerland's Mathis Cabiallavetta became chairman of 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 was considered to be the more established platform. Union Bank of Switzerland had a stronger retail and commercial banking business in Switzerland and both banks had strong asset management capabilities.




Acquisition of Paine Webber


On November 3, 2000, UBS merged with Paine Webber, an American stock brokerage and asset management firm led by chairman and CEO, Donald Marron. The acquisition pushed UBS to the top Wealth and Asset Management Firm in 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 writedown 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.




Rising in the league tables (2000–2007)


John P. Costas, 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, known as UBS Warburg in December 2001. He 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 $300 million in 1998 to over $3 billion by 2001.
The arrival of former Drexel Burnham Lambert investment banker Ken Moelis marked a major coup for Costas. Moelis joined UBS from Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette in 2001 shortly after that its acquisition by Credit Suisse First Boston. In his six years at UBS, Moelis ultimately assumed the role of president of UBS Investment Bank and was credited, along with Costas, with 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 $600 million to $700 million hiring top bankers in the U.S. during this three-year period. Among the bank's other major recruits during this period were Olivier Sarkozy, Ben Lorello, Jeff McDermott and Blair Effron.
By 2003, UBS had risen to fourth place from seventh in global investment banking fees, earning $2.1 billion of the $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 had established a track record of 20 consecutive quarters of rising profits.




Impact of the financial crisis (2008–2009)


The bank's losses continued to mount in 2008 when UBS announced in April 2008 that it was writing down a further $19 billion of investments in subprime and other mortgage assets. By this point, UBS's total losses in the mortgage market were in excess of $37 billion, the largest such losses of any of its peers. In response to its losses, UBS announced a 15 billion CHF rights offering to raise the additional funds need to shore up its depleted reserves of capital. UBS cut its dividend in order to protect its traditionally high tier 1 capital ratio, seen by investors as a key to its credibility as the world's largest wealth management company. Marcel Ospel, who had been the architect of the merger that created UBS in 1998, also announced that he would step down as chairman of the bank to be replaced by Peter Kurer, the bank’s general counsel.
In October 2008, UBS announced they had placed CHF 6 billion of new capital, through mandatory convertible notes, with Swiss Confederation. The SNB (Swiss National Bank) and UBS made an agreement to transfer approximately US$60 billion of currently illiquid securities and various assets from UBS to a separate fund entity.UBS raised an additional $11.5 billion of capital in December 2007, $9.7 billion of which came from the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) and $1.8 billion from an unnamed Middle Eastern investor. In November 2008, UBS put $6 billion of equity into the new “bad bank” entity, keeping only an option to benefit if the value of its assets were to recover. Heralded as a “neat” package by the New York Times, the UBS structure guaranteed clarity for UBS investors by making an outright sale.
UBS announced in February 2009 that it had lost nearly CHF 20 billion (US$17.2 billion) in 2008, the biggest single-year loss of any company in Swiss history. Since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2007, UBS had written down approximately $50bn of mortgage related assets and announced 11,000 job cuts.
In India, in the aftermath of financial crisis, UBS prescribed a stricter dress code. Female employees are required to wear ‘skin coloured’ lingerie, not to wear too tight behind skirts, as also exists instructions about permissible hair-styles, type of socks to wear, that underwear must not be visible against clothing or spilling out, etc. The code for male employees is to wear a straight-cut two button jacket and pants, not to wear ties not matching the morphology of the face, nor cartoon motifs socks, etc. Employees are to avoid smelling of strong scent, garlic, onion and cigarette smoke.




U.S. tax evasion controversy


In July 2008, a United States Senate panel accused Swiss banks, including UBS and LGT Group, of helping wealthy Americans evade taxes through offshore accounts. U.S. clients held about 19,000 accounts at UBS, with an estimated $18 billion to $20 billion in assets, in Switzerland, according to the findings. In response to the report and the FBI investigation, UBS announced that it would cease providing cross-border private banking services to US-domiciled clients through its non-US regulated units as of July 2008. In November 2008, a U.S. federal grand jury indicted Raoul Weil, Chairman and CEO of UBS Global Wealth Management and Business Banking and member of UBS's Group Executive Board, in connection with the ongoing investigation of UBS's US cross-border business. UBS would eventually cut ties to Raoul Weil in May 2009 and he would face charges after UBS had settled its criminal case with the government.
UBS agreed, on February 18, 2009, to pay a fine of $780 million to the U.S. Government and entered into a deferred prosecution agreement on charges of conspiring to defraud the United States by impeding the Internal Revenue Service. Of the $780 million that UBS will pay, $380 million represents disgorgement of profits from its cross-border business; the balance represents United States taxes that UBS failed to withhold on the accounts. As part of the deal, UBS also settled Securities and Exchange Commission charges of having acted as an unregistered broker-dealer and investment adviser for Americans.
The day after settling its criminal case, on February 19, 2009, the U.S. government filed a civil suit against UBS to reveal the names of all 52,000 American customers, alleging that the bank and these customers conspired to defraud the IRS and federal government of legitimately owed tax revenue. The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) had given the United States government the identities of, and account information for, certain United States customers of UBS’s cross-border business as part of its criminal investigation in 2009. On August 12, 2009, UBS announced a settlement deal that ended its litigation with the IRS. However, this settlement set up a showdown between the U.S. and Swiss governments over the secrecy of Swiss bank accounts. It was not until June 2010 that Swiss lawmakers approved deal to reveal client data and account details of U.S. clients who were suspected of tax evasion.




Re-establishment (2009–current)


By the spring of 2009 UBS announced another management restructuring and initiated a plan to return to profitability. Jerker Johansson, the head of the investment bank division, resigned in April 2009 and was replaced by Alex Wilmot-Sitwell and Carsten Kengeter. At the same time, UBS announced the planned elimination of 8,700 jobs and had implemented a new compensation plan. Under the plan, no more than one-third of any cash bonus would be paid out in the year it is earned with the rest held in reserve and stock-based incentives that would vest after three years; top executives would have to hold 75% of any vested shares. Additionally, the bank's chairman, Peter Kurer, would no longer receive any extra variable compensation, only a cash salary and a fixed allotment of shares that could not be sold for four years. Also, in April 2009, UBS announced that it has agreed to sell its Brazilian financial services business, UBS Pactual, for approximately $2.5 billion to BTG Investments.
By the summer of 2009, UBS was showing increased signs of stabilization. Taking advantage of conditions in the stock market, UBS placed $3.5 billion of shares with a small number of large institutional investors. The Swiss government sold its CHF 6 billion stake in UBS in late 2008 at a large profit.
In August 2010, UBS launched a new advertising campaign featuring the slogan: “We will not rest" and signed a global sponsorship agreement with Formula 1.
On October 26, 2010 UBS announced that its private bank recorded net new funds of 900 million Swiss francs during the third quarter, compared to outflow of 5.5 billion Swiss francs in second quarter. UBS's third quarter net profit of $1.65 billion beat analyst estimates, continuing a string of profitability.
After the elimination of almost 5,000 jobs, the firm announced on 23 August 2011 that it was further eliminating another 3,500 positions to save SFr 1.5 to SFr 2 billion a year. The firm has seen profits fall due to the rise of the Swiss franc.
On 15 September 2011, UBS discovered a loss due to unauthorized trading by a trader identified as Kweku Adoboli, in the firm’s exchange-traded funds unit in its Investment Bank. The loss was estimated to be in the range of US$2 billion. However, the bank revealed no client positions were affected.