MORNING NEWS

UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti will pocket a stable salary in 2025. As in 2024, he will be paid CHF 14.9 million for the past financial year. According to the annual report published on Monday, CHF 2.8 million of this is fixed salary and CHF 12.1 million is variable remuneration. The entire Group Executive Board of Switzerland's largest bank will receive a total of CHF 145.3 million for 2025, up from CHF 143.6 million. Ermotti is currently challenged on all fronts: operationally, strategically, and in public relations. The Ticino native took over as CEO again in April 2023 to lead the integration of the acquired Credit Suisse. In terms of integration, the bank is on track without any major incidents: in 2025, the important migration of former CS customer accounts in Switzerland to the UBS platform was largely completed and is expected to be finalized by the end of the current first quarter of 2026.

Broadcom posted higher sales in the latest quarter as the type and number of AI customers kept expanding. AI revenue in the quarter more than doubled to $8.4 billion, driven by demand for custom AI accelerators and networking, Chief Executive Hock Tan said. Demand is now coming from both hyperscalers and regular companies looking to build out their own AI agents, he told investors on a call Wednesday. “Some of them are hyperscalers, some of them are not hyperscalers, but they all have one thing in common, which is to create LLMs, productize it and generate platforms,” Tan said. The semiconductor and software maker’s customer base is expanding beyond its core focus of hyperscalers like Google and Anthropic, Tan said.

ASM International reported higher-than-expected net profit for the last quarter of 2025, buoyed by stronger demand and a rebound in orders from its Chinese customers. The Dutch supplier of equipment for the semiconductor industry announced a drop in net profit to €166.1 million ($194.2 million), compared with €225.8 million a year earlier.

Kuehne + Nagel reported a sharp drop in 2025 earnings following a year it said was marked by a deteriorating economic environment. The Swiss transport and logistics company said full-year recurring earnings before interest and tax - a preferred profitability measure - fell 17% on year. It expects recurring EBIT of between 1.2 billion and 1.4 billion Swiss francs ($1.54 billion-$1.8 billion) this year, after reporting 1.38 billion francs in 2025. As the freight industry contends with overcapacity and pressure on profitability, the company has been working to right-size its cost base and streamline its organizational and sales structure as it seeks to accelerate growth.

The escalation in the Middle East has driven up the price of gold sharply at the start of the week. The price of a troy ounce of gold is currently trading at around US$5,350, well above Friday's level. The precious metal is continuing its strong performance from last week and is once again heading towards the record high of $5,595 reached at the end of January. JP Morgan and Bank of America have reaffirmed their targets of $6,000, with JP Morgan forecasting $6,300 by the end of the year, supported by continued purchases by central banks.

Nvidia reported a 94% increase in profit and record sales for the fourth quarter, helping ease concerns over a possible artificial-intelligence bubble that rippled through markets in recent months. The chip maker reported net income of $43 billion, up from $22.1 billion in the year-earlier quarter, on sales of $68.1 billion, up 73% from $39.3 billion a year earlier, easily beating consensus estimates. Analysts polled by FactSet had predicted net income of $37.5 billion and revenue of $66.1 billion for the quarter.

Meta Platforms has agreed to buy 6 gigawatts’ worth of artificial intelligence computing power from Advanced Micro Devices in a deal valued at more than $100 billion that could result in Meta owning as much as 10% of AMD’s stock. The deal, announced by the companies Tuesday, represents a coup for AMD in its effort to challenge Nvidia in the market for selling graphics processing units, or GPUs—the microchips powering the AI boom.

Enel said it would increase spending across its business and target higher shareholder returns under a new three-year strategic plan. The Rome-based energy company set out its goals through 2028, including plans to increase gross total capital expenditure to around 53 billion euros ($62.45 billion). This marks a roughly 10 billion-euro increase on the previous three-year strategic plan that ran to the end of 2027.

Shares in Moncler rose sharply after the Italian group delivered strong results for the core winter season, a crucial shopping period for both the company and the industry. The stock was up 17% in European trading. The maker of high-end outerwear and apparel, which is best known for its puffer jackets, said the accelerating trend seen in last year’s final quarter carried into 2026 to date. For the three months through December, it booked revenue of 1.29 billion euros ($1.52 billion), an increase of 7% compared with the same period a year earlier on a constant currency basis.

Construction chemicals and adhesives manufacturer Sika suffered a decline in profits in the 2025 financial year. Negative currency effects, the weak Chinese construction market, and the US government shutdown at the end of the year all contributed to slower growth. As already announced on a provisional basis in January, sales in local currencies shrank by 4.8 percent to CHF 11.20 billion, the company confirmed on Friday.