UBS, which reported a loss in its latest quarterly results, vowed to return to solid profitability and said it will strengthen its wealth management operations as the leading institution for high net worth individuals.

Over the next three to five years, the Zurich-listed bank and wealth manager aims to achieve about SFr15 billion (about $14.9 billion) of annual profit before tax; a cost-to-income ratio of 65-70 per cent; and a return-on-equity of 15-20 per cent, according to a statement issued at an investment presentation today.

UBS is seeking to recover its fortunes after suffering a total of about $50 billion in losses related to the US sub-prime crisis as well as being hit by a prominent tax evasion case in the US. It has seen outflows from its wealth management operations, with mixed results in its Swiss, international and Americas businesses.

In a presentation to investors, Oswald Grübel, chief executive, said: “It will strengthen its position as the number one bank for high net worth and ultra high net worth private clients and remain the number one bank in Switzerland.”

He continued: “In addition, it will be a top-tier bank in every growth region, the leading client-focused investment bank and economically profitable in every segment, market and business in which it operates.”

Among the specific targets it set, UBS gave the following figures:

Wealth Management & Swiss Bank  - operating income of around SFr14.3 billion, with pre-tax profit of around SFr6.5 billion and and cost to income of around 54 per cent. It has a target for invested assets of around SFr1 trillion with 4,700 client advisors.

Wealth Management Americas - UBS said it had a pre-tax profit target of about SFr1 billion and a cost-income ratio of between 80 to 85 per cent.

At its Global Asset Management arm - UBS has a pre-tax profit target of around SFr1.3 billion.

“The higher revenues and gross margins outlined in the medium-term targets of the business are to be achieved by reversing client outflows, improving investment performance and the quality of advice, maintaining its position as an industry cost leader and delivering the integrated firm to clients in a structured and consistent manner,” UBS said in its statement on the objectives.

“External observers have tended to over-estimate the potentially negative impact of European tax amnesties on invested assets. In fact, of SFr435 billion of total European invested assets, approximately one quarter represents cross-border private client assets in countries neighbouring Switzerland and in the UK,” it added.

Morgan Stanley, the US bank which has an "equal weight" recommendation on UBS's stock, says the firm should be able to profit in the medium term from restructuring, seeing improvements in its wealth management businesses.