UBS profits

SHARES IN UBS, parent of Warburg Dillon Read, the investment bank, shrugged off a 554m Swiss franc (pounds 231m) hit from the Holocaust settlement to soar 4 per cent in Zurich yesterday after reporting a better-than-expected first half, thanks to buoyant equity markets world-wide.

Investment banking profits were Sfr1.128bn (pounds 471m), 81 per cent of the 1997 total. The group operating profit before tax was Sfr4.6bn, up 26 per cent. UBS, which last week cut a third of its Moscow staff, said it had lost Sfr200m in the latest Russian debacle.