Goldman Sachs and UBS have actively poached senior dealmakers from rivals this year - but their fortunes have been notably different

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Goldman Sachs and UBS have had very different fortunes in 2018.

• Goldman Sachs and UBS have been the most active banks in hiring senior dealmakers from rivals in 2018, according to a Business Insider analysis. But their stories diverge from there.
• Goldman has made inroads on its goal of boosting investment banking revenues by $500 million by 2020; UBS' investment bank has seen key senior departures and revenue is down 4% in advisory and capital markets.

While Goldman and UBS have been the two most aggressive firms in poaching senior dealmakers away from rivals this year, their fortunes have been notably different.

In the most active year for investment-bank recruiting in the US since the financial crisis, Goldman and UBS each have lured at least 13 managing directors or other senior investment bankers as of early November, according to reports and interviews with industry's top headhunting firms.

But their paths diverge from there.

Goldman, which is on a mission to generate $500 million in additional investment-banking revenues by 2020, is the only bulge-bracket bank to hire more senior bankers than it lost according to our headhunter reports, stealing marquee talent and bringing them in at the partner level - something the bank used to do rarely.

Among their notable hires are Chris Gallea and Kurt Simon from JPMorgan, David Hammond from Credit Suisse, and Adam Nordin from Barclays.

Under new CEO David Solomon, the bank is dropping serious cash in its effort to snatch market share from rivals JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley in the industry league tables. Through the third quarter of 2018, Goldman's investment-banking revenues are up 11% to $5.8 billion, and the firm is ranked second in the global and US league tables, according to Dealogic.

UBS, meanwhile, has seen many big name bankers leave as it's hired.

The bank has lost at least 21 senior bankers in the US, according to headhunters - second only to Deutsche Bank. That figure doesn't include Andrea Orcel, the hard-charging London-based global investment banking chief, who left for Santander in September.

The losses - which include US investment banking head Joe Reece, who lasted just one year at the firm, US M&A co-head Larry Grafstein who left for RBC Capital Markets, and at least four managing directors who left for Rothschild - have been more notable than the additions, according to top investment-banking recruiters.

None of the hires were among the 40 most significant investment banking moves of 2018, based on analysis and recommendations from senior headhunters, who asked not to be named speaking about individual companies.

Of the bankers who left UBS, 17 of those resigned to join another firm, according to a person familiar with the matter. UBS has also hired three additional senior bankers since November, the person said.

[Read more: 2018 has been one of the wildest years in M&A since the financial crisis - here are the 40 biggest investment-banker moves]

Through the third quarter, global investment-banking revenues (which includes advising on deals as well as equity and debt capital markets) are down 4% to $1.9 billion at UBS, according to Bloomberg data. UBS is absent from the top-10 on the US investment banking league tables and comes in 9th in overall investment banking revenue globally, according to Dealogic.

Representatives for Goldman and UBS declined to comment.

To be sure, the Swiss lender has a highly profitable global wealth management business, which has increasingly become the focus at UBS since the financial crisis as other units like fixed income trading have scaled back. Bank executives have said that UBS' investment bank is focused on profitability, not on scale and giving out loans to lure clients.

And while Goldman is trending in the right direction, it remains to be seen whether their expensive bets on talent will be enough to topple No. 1 ranked JPMorgan in the league tables.

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