ZURICH, Switzerland (PNN) - October 30, 2012 - Swiss banking giant UBS intends to cut nearly 10,000 jobs worldwide in a restructuring of its hard-hit investment bank, the group said on Tuesday, reporting that reorganization costs had pushed it deep into loss in the third quarter.

The costs switched the Swiss bank's third-quarter results into a 2.2-billion Swiss franc net loss compared to the 1.0 billion net profit it had reported during the July-September period last year.

The Zurich-based bank said that cuts in its overall staff numbers to about 54,000 by 2015 was a necessary part of a restructuring of its investment bank, including shedding some of its high-risk activities and basically withdrawing from the fixed income business, which had burdened it with catastrophic losses during the 2008 "subprime" crisis.

Before taxes, UBS said it was hit by a loss of 2.5 billion Swiss francs, but adjusted for the impairment losses and a restructuring provision, it had registered a pre-tax profit of 1.4 billion.

The bank said it was withdrawing from lines of business "that do not meet their cost of capital sustainably or are in areas with high operational complexity or long tail risks likely to weigh on future returns."

The bank expected to have to pay a further amount of about 500 million Swiss francs in restructuring charges in the fourth quarter, which is also expected to be in the red.

UBS finance chief Tom Naratil stressed that despite the difficult economic environment, the bank had managed to raise a record amount of fresh capital, raising 7.7 billion Swiss francs from the Asia Pacific region, emerging markets, and very wealthy clients.

In the fourth quarter, the bank said it expected to pull in more fresh capital despite the continued difficult climate.

As for dividend payments, which UBS started doing again last year after a four-year freeze, Naratil said "we continue to accrue for a dividend" in 2012, but did not specify if the bank would hand out some of its profits this year to shareholders.