UBS lays off 35 senior bankers in the Americas

NEW YORK (Reuters) - UBS AG cut roughly a third of its Americas investment banking and capital markets group this week, including 35 senior managing directors, three sources close to the matter said.

A UBS spokeswoman confirmed the layoffs of the managing directors, which occurred in the corporate client solutions group, composed of investment banking, equity capital markets and leverage finance teams.

As part of the cuts in the U.S. and Canada, more than a dozen people in the San Francisco technology group were laid off, and the Swiss bank shut its Los Angeles office, one of the sources said.

A handful of senior level bankers that remained in the Los Angeles office were transferred to San Francisco, the spokeswoman said.

UBS announced in October 2012 it was planning to cut 10,000 employees or 15 percent of the bank's workforce. It also said it would wind down its fixed income division. Those layoffs were on top of another 3,500 cuts the bank announced in the prior year, mostly in its investment banking division.

The staff cuts come amid a series of problems that have plagued the Swiss bank, including a $2.3 billion trading loss caused by a rogue trader and fines related to potential LIBOR manipulation.

(Reporting By Nadia Damouni; Editing by Bernard Orr)