UBS Group AG has moved away from Credit Suisse’s original plan to sell its $250 million distressed-debt business to a single bidder after it failed to attract enough interest, and is instead planning to dispose of the assets individually, Bloomberg News reported. The sale was called off late last year because bids were scarce and too low, according to people familiar with the matter. The assets have been added to UBS’s special wind-down unit for Credit Suisse and are being sold on an individual basis, said the people, who asked not to be named as the details are private. Credit Suisse sought to exit distressed debt and special-situations trading earlier last year in an attempt to downsize and shore up confidence, just weeks before it was forced into the arms of its larger local rival in an emergency takeover. UBS is working through the assets inherited from Credit Suisse that it doesn’t want, which amounted to an estimated $77 billion as of the end of the third quarter.
