2500 UBS souls have a reprieve....

The company is cutting 5500 jobs, not the up to 8000 speculated yesterday....

UBS AG, battered by $17.3 billion of first-quarter losses at its investment-banking unit, plans to cut 5,500 jobs, or about 7 percent of the workforce.

The reductions will include as many as 2,600 positions at the securities division, the company said in a statement today. The bank also said it plans to exit the municipal bond business and sell $15 billion in distressed assets to a newly created fund managed by BlackRock Inc. UBS had a net loss of 11.5 billion francs ($10.9 billion) in the first quarter.

``If the damage from investment-banking losses to the UBS brand name is high, it's very likely that there will be cost measures also at the private bank,'' said Paul Vrouwes, a fund manager at ING Investment Management who helps oversee about $23 billion, including UBS shares. ``In the coming quarters and potentially even years, the securities industry will have to live with lower transactions and lower commissions.''

UBS Set to Cut 5,500 Jobs After First-Quarter Loss - Bloomberg