It’s a Swiss miss.
UBS was booted from a coveted — and profitable — spot as one of the banks handling the high-profile initial public offering of General Motors after an employee at the Zurich-based bank sent an unauthorized e-mail to about 150 of the firm’s clients with details of the offering, including valuation estimates, sources said.
That’s a no-no and it angered GM. Such a move would have been a violation of marketing rules enforced by Securities and Exchange Commission, sources say.
The errant e-mail will cost UBS about $10 million — roughly what its profit would have been for participating in the $13 billion GM IPO, according to experts.
Sources say that although the e-mail runs afoul of SEC rules, the offering won’t be delayed. The GM IPO is scheduled for Wednesday.
A UBS spokeswoman declined to comment.
JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Bank of America were tapped as lead underwriters on the deal, with more than 30 other institutions slated to participate.
The UBS employee who sent the e-mail was a senior high-yield research analyst who has been terminated, sources said.
Yesterday, General Motors confirmed to Reuters that it dumped one of its underwriters but didn’t name names.
In a filing yesterday, GM officials distanced themselves from the UBS e-mail. “We were not involved in any way in the preparation or distribution of the e-mail by the employee of the previously named proposed underwriter,” the carmaker said.
Separately, GM reported a third-quarter profit of $2.1 billion, a 50 percent increase from the second quarter.