Zurich - The Swiss banking giant UBS said Wednesday it will take a first quarter loss of almost 2 billion Swiss francs (1.7 billion dollars) and will cut 8,700 jobs worldwide by 2010. "Unfortunately I am not able, as yet, to offer you any good news," Oswald Grubel, Chief Executive Officer of the UBS Group was expected to tell shareholders later at an annual meeting. He took over his role in February this year.

Most of the new losses were in further writedowns and cash outflows in its wealth management divisions.

Zurich - Spain has built up a record lead atop the world football rankings, issued on Wednesday by the governing body FIFA, courtesy of its latest two victories.

The Euro 2008 champions defeated Turkey twice in World Cup qualifiers, 1-0 on March 28 and 2-1 on April 1, to stretch their unbeaten run to 31 games and lead the FIFA list with 1,729 points.

FIFA said that the 367-point advantage over second-placed Germany (1,362) is the biggest lead since the rankings which take into account national team games were introduced in 1993.

Zurich  - Four key central banks have agreed to provide foreign currency to the Federal Reserve so that it can pump liquidity into financial institutions in need of capital, the Swiss National Bank said Monday.

Should the need arise, the Fed would be able to access euro, yen, sterling and Swiss francs through the new swap agreements, which come on top of previous commitments, with the European Central Bank, Bank of Japan, Bank of England and the Swiss National Bank.

Zurich  - The Swiss banking giant UBS was preventing some 1,000 of its wealth management personnel from leaving the country owing to legal concerns, local media reported Sunday.

Those advisers can longer visit their clients abroad and if a meeting is needed, it would have to take place in Switzerland.

Spokespersons for the bank said travel abroad to meet clients in the cross-border wealth management division had been suspended.

Zurich  - The embattled Swiss banking giant UBS completed Friday the transfer of its toxic assets to the Swiss National Bank. The bank would take a
300-million-dollar charge in the first quarter for the transfer.

The new transfer of 22.2 billion dollars of securities, loans and derivatives would give the stabilization fund, set up by the central bank as part of a bailout for UBS, a total volume of assets of 38.7 billion dollars.

Zurich  - Adecco, the largest staffing company globally, announced Thursday it had appointed Patrick De Maeseneire as the new Chief Executive Officer to replace Dieter Scheiff.

De Maeseneire, a Belgian national, had worked for Adecco for four years until 2002 and he currently serves as CEO of Barry Callebaut, a cocoa and chocolate company.

Adecco took a 22 million euro loss in the final quarter of last year and its profits for 2008 fell 33 per cent to 495 million euros. Its revenues for the entire year fell by 5 per cent to 20 billion euros.