It looks the same like at home

Walking recently in Down Town Charleston I saw this sign and felt for seconds like I'm back home in Zurich again :-)

UBS has its roots as a Swiss Bank, originating in 1747, when its first branch was established in the Swiss region of Valposchiavo. However, the three core components of the company date back to the second half of the nineteenth century. Union Bank of Switzerland, Swiss Bank Corporation, and Paine Webber or their antecedents, were all founded in the 1860s and 1870s.

Modern UBS was formed through a merger of the Union Bank of Switzerland and the Swiss Bank Corporation in June 1998. Although the merged company's new name was originally supposed to be the "United Bank of Switzerland," officials opted to call it simply "UBS."

SBC had previously built a global investment banking business through its acquisitions of Dillon Read in New York and S.G. Warburg in London. The first chairman of the merged bank had to step down in October 1998 due to the Long-Term Capital Management crisis, which affected the Union Bank of Switzerland. In 2000, UBS acquired PaineWebber Group Inc. to become the world's largest wealth management firm for private clients. Invested assets in all wealth management businesses, including the U.S., total CHF 3.265 trillion.

On June 9th, 2003, all UBS business groups rebranded under the UBS name as the company began operating as one large firm. UBS Paine Webber, UBS Warburg, UBS Asset Management, and others became simply "UBS". As a result of the rebranding, UBS took a $1B writedown for the loss of goodwill associated with the retirement of the Paine Webber brand. UBS is no longer an acronym but is the company's brand, like 3M. Its logo of three keys, carried over from SBC, stands for confidence, security, and discretion.^[3]

UBS is present in all major financial centers worldwide, with offices in 50 countries. According to the UBS website, the bank had 81,557 employees on June 30, 2007. The 2007 Q2 report breaks these Financial Business permanent staff down by region as: 27,315 in Switzerland, 31,933 in the Americas, 13,355 in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA / not including Switzerland), and 8,954 in Asia and Australasia (APAC).

Read more about UBS here