UBS reports quarterly loss of $10.97 billion

Adding to the US sub-prime issues Swiss bank UBS reported a first-quarter loss of $10.97 billion and said Tuesday it will slash almost 7 percent of its work force. In the same period last year the bank reported a net profit of 3 billion francs against the 11.5 billion Swiss franc loss this year.

The bank said it will cut 2,600 jobs in its investment banking arm — which took the blame for most of UBS’ record $37.4 billion in write-downs since last summer. The major chunk of job cut will be done in Britain and the U.S. UBS has more than 83,800 employees worldwide.

In a conference call with analysts CEO Marcel Rohner confirmed reports that UBS is selling parts of its subprime portfolio to U.S. asset manager BlackRock Inc. for $15 billion (9.7 billion euros).