Exclusive: photos shed light on downsizing at Stamford UBS headquarters

North Korea gives out visas more readily than this.

Effectively off-limits to journalists for several years during a dramatic and controversial restructuring of the company — one that has political and economic overtones for the state of Connecticut and city of Stamford — the mammoth North American headquarters of Swiss bank UBS resembles a ghost town in some parts of the building.

Dramatic new photos obtained exclusively by Hearst Connecticut Media illustrate the downsizing, from empty work stations on what was once the world’s largest trading floor to dismantled cubicles in the tower building of UBS on Washington Boulevard.

Floors 9 through 12 of the 13-story tower are vacant, according to the insider who took the photos, who asked not to be identified because of fear of being blackballed.

Weakened by the financial tsunami of 2008, $50 billion in mortgage losses and an impending $8 billion fine for currency rigging, UBS received a $20 million forgivable loan from the administration of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy in 2011 to keep 2,000 jobs in the state through the end of 2016.

“There’s no way that they’re going to be able to live up to their end of the deal,” the insider said, adding that UBS is counting employees who spend one day a week at the Stamford headquarters and the rest of their work week in New York City or Weehawken, N.J., at the company’s wealth management office toward the total.

Karina Byrne, a New York City-based spokeswoman for UBS, denied the account.

“That is categorically untrue,” Byrne told Hearst Wednesday, adding that it’s customary for employees to keep a desk at more than one facility. “Most employees have a primary location and can have a secondary location somewhere.”

Byrne said that the staffing levels of UBS in Connecticut are subject to an annual audit by an independent accountant.

She would not disclose how many employees UBS currently has in Connecticut, other than to say that the 2,000-minimum requirement applies to the entire state and that company has offices in Greenwich, Westport, New Haven, West Hartford, Hartford and New London.

UBS would be required to pay back the full $20 million forgivable loan, plus $1.5 million in interest, if it failed to meet job benchmarks stipulated in the 2011 economic incentive package.

“I don’t think they’ll meet the full five years,”Malloy told Hearst last week, raising eyebrows of business and political leaders in the city where he was mayor from 1995 to 2009. “I have doubts is what I’m saying.”

Malloy’s GOP critics have zeroed-in on the deal with UBS, saying it is another example of corporate welfare by an anti-business governor.

The UBS insider told Hearst that the bank has moved a slew of back office jobs from its Stamford headquarters to a new business solutions center in Nashville, Tenn.

Byrne declined to comment on the transfers.

This summer, a team of third-party vendors from China who work in trade support were brought into the Stamford headquarters for training, the insider said.

 

 

Neil Vigdor