UBS chief executive Sergio Ermotti said today that the Swiss bank was working on closing its merger with Credit Suisse by the end of May or early June.

Speaking at the Finanz ’23 conference in Zurich, Ermotti also repeated his bank’s line that all options were still on the table concerning Credit Suisse’s Swiss business.

In March UBS agreed to takeover its struggling cross-town rival for 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.37 billion).

It also said it would assume up to 5 billion ($5.61 billion) in losses as part of a deal hastily arranged by Swiss authorities.

On Sunday, NZZ am Sonntag newspaper reported that the country’s largest bank was working towards spinning off Credit Suisse’s domestic unit, with its current head, Andre Helfenstein, expected to run it.

The Swiss newspaper cited a source as saying that UBS had come around to the idea of a spin-off, which it initially ruled out, because of growing public and political pressure.

Ermotti today also said it was too early to put a figure on how many jobs would be cut as a result of the merger.

“Job cuts will not be avoidable,” he said.

Meanwhile UBS was considering the potential impact of buying struggling rival Credit Suisse as early as December, months before the takeover was hastily arranged by Swiss authorities in March, according to a regulatory filing.

The filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also showed UBS concluded in February that buying Credit Suisse was not desirable.

But it added that it should prepare in case its rival encountered “serious financial difficulties”.

The disclosure, dated April 26, provides the clearest insight yet into UBS’s thinking and shows it had been looking at its struggling competitor months before the rescue deal orchestrated by Swiss authorities was put together.

In February, Switzerland’s financial regulator FINMA said it was closely monitoring Credit Suisse given it was experiencing “significant” outflows, but noted the stabilising effect of its liquidity buffers.

Only days before the rescue, the regulator and the central bank, while pledging funding if necessary, still judged Credit Suisse remained sound.

They stepped in after clients, unsettled by market turmoil unleashed by the collapse of two mid-sized US lenders, kept pulling money from the scandal-plagued 167-year-old institution.

The regulator later defended its actions, saying it had been quick to respond and called for more powers to call banks to account.

Since then, the Swiss authorities and UBS have been racing to close the takeover as soon as possible in an effort to retain Credit Suisse’s clients and employees, Reuters has reported.

UBS said in the filing that the merger still required approval from regulators in the European Union, India, Japan, Mexico and South Korea.

Last month, UBS secured temporary approval from European Union antitrust regulators, while the US Federal Reserve approved the UBS Group’s acquisition of Credit Suisse’s US subsidiaries.

The filing also said the merger could be terminated if its “closing conditions have not been satisfied” by December, but that any missing regulatory approvals would not be treated as a breach of those conditions by UBS.