Better news this Monday if you work at UBS Investment Bank. Reuters reports that CEO Marcel Rohner has told Swiss weekly newspaper Sonntagszeitung that media estimates of 3,000 to 4,000 more job losses in the unit are too high. He said that UBS would reveal the exact number of heads to be cut next month.

Rohner also said that he thought that UBS was at its lowest ebb, and that things would get better from now on. 'We are no longer at the lowest point'. He warned, however, that 'there are certain factors that we cannot influence, however, such as the US real estate market. There, there is volatility'. Rohner also said that 'we are strong enough to manage our risks and our positions (now). Now it is about winning back the destroyed trust on the customer side'. UBS's CEO said that he also had recently seen trading in areas where there had been no trading for months, and that 'this is generally a sign that an end (of the financial crisis) is foreseeable'.

In the meantime, in-coming UBS chairman Peter Kurer got in on the act over the weekend too. He told Swiss daily Neue Zuercher Zeitung that UBS is to retain its fully integrated 'one bank' model. He said: 'We are sticking to our integrated model, which interlocks the three businesses - wealth management, asset management and investment banking. Our wealth management business is so large today because we are also doing investment banking'.

Bloomberg reports that Kurer has said that he will replace the bank's Chairman's Office with separate strategy and risk committees that will include seats for non-executive board members.

Finally, The Daily Telegraph reports that former UBS President Luqman Arnold, the man on a mission to get UBS back on track, has identified two candidates to move the bank forward and take on the Chairman's role on a long term basis (he sees Kurer as a mere caretaker) - Josef Ackermann, the Swiss national currently CEO over at Deutsche Bank, and Markus Granziol, a former UBS executive who worked with Arnold when he was at UBS a few years back. Other candidates said to be in the frame include former Credit Suisse CEO Oswald Gruebel and Barclays Capital Chairman Hans-Joerg Rudloff.

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