UBS using less space

November 8 , 2008 – By Peter Healy, Staff Writer, The Advocate

STAMFORD - UBS AG has placed up for sublease 112,000 square feet of office space it leases at the Purdue Pharma headquarters in downtown Stamford.

But the Swiss banking giant, which sustained huge losses in the credit crisis and mortgage meltdown, was reticent to discuss whether personnel moves at its Stamford investment bank caused that action. [Choyce Peterson coverage highlighted in yellow in the Read More section.]

Spokesman Kris Kagel said Friday that UBS will not say how many people worked there, when they left or whether they were laid off or transferred to other offices.

"I can confirm that UBS has several blocks of space on the market in Stamford and New York City, and we will adjust to market opportunities (to sublet them) as they develop," Kagel said.

This year, UBS has been scaling back its investment banking unit and plans to separate it from wealth and asset management after mounting writedowns prompted clients to withdraw funds for the first time in almost eight years.

In addition, the company last month announced 2,000 layoffs globally in its investment bank. "We have not broken that figure down by country or region," Kagel said Friday.

Those job cuts follow the 7,000 that UBS announced earlier this year.

UBS' investment bank, which comprises fixed income, equities and investment banking, employed 19,475 people at the end of June, a 12 percent decline from 22,137 a year earlier.

No one is working for UBS on the two floors at 201 Tresser Blvd., said Paul Jacobs of the Stamford office of CB Richard Ellis commercial real estate. CB is seeking tenants to sublet the space and is the listing broker for the building.

The number of workers who had been there remained unknown Friday. UBS has not filed any layoff notices with the state Department of Labor for the past several months, according to the department's Web site.

Corporate headquarters and law firms usually place three people in 1,000 square feet of office space, compared with four to five per thousand for service and financial companies, said John Hannigan, a principal with Stamford-based Choyce Peterson Inc. commercial real estate.

Based on Hannigan's estimate, the floors of the Purdue Pharma building could hold a maximum of 560 people. Privately owned Purdue Pharma, a maker of pharmaceuticals that include the controversial OxyContin painkiller, leases extra space to UBS in its 13-story, 550,000-square-foot headquarters building. Several hundred other Purdue Pharma employees work in leased space at 1600 Summer St. in Stamford.

The city's largest private employer, UBS also has a massive headquarters office building at Washington Boulevard and North State Street and the world's largest trading floor next door. Over the past several years, UBS has leased extra space in nearby office buildings rather than construct more buildings.

UBS could have laid off a number of people this year in the city. Kagel said this week the company has about 3,600 full-time employees in Stamford. Other published reports earlier this year estimated that UBS employed about 4,200 people in the city.

Hannigan, whose firm specializes in finding office space for companies, said the UBS sublet and job cuts could signal a trend.

"We have been anticipating a large block of subleases coming on the market from the (local) financial giants for several months now," he said.

Jim Fagan, senior managing director of the Connecticut and Westchester County, N.Y., operations of New York City-based Cushman & Wakefield Inc. commercial real estate, called the UBS sublet "predictable."

"Large financial companies across the country are trying to sublet space," Fagan said.

- Staff Writer Peter Healy can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 964-2276.

©2008 Southern Conn. Newspapers, Inc.