Despite reporting a first-quarter loss of nearly $12 billion, the Swiss bank is standing firm by its patronage of the London Symphony Orchestra. There is austerity and there is austerity, folks. Let’s be reasonable.

A day after posting a first-quarter loss of 12 billion Swiss francs ($11.9 billion), UBS AG, Europe's biggest bank by assets, defended its sponsorship of the London Symphony Orchestra, which runs until 2010.

``To pull out at a time like this would be terribly easy, but I would say that if we did that, our reputation would be shot,'' said Richard Hardie, non-executive vice chairman of UBS Ltd. and the bank's sponsorship adviser in London, at a joint presentation with the LSO yesterday.

Given ``all the claims that we've been making and all the aspirational statements,'' Hardie said, cutting off the LSO ``would be madness to even contemplate.'' He said UBS has stopped backing the Verbier Festival Orchestra in Switzerland, and will end sponsorship of the Festival itself in 2010.

Earlier this week, UBS made the biggest writedowns from the collapse of the U.S. subprime mortgage market, and said chairman Marcel Ospel is resigning.

UBS backs nearly two dozen orchestras and festivals across Europe and the U.S., including the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In the visual arts, it supports Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach; the Montreux Jazz Festival; and Tate Modern's permanent collection, which is regularly rehung.

Church Hall

In the mid-1990s, Hardie said, UBS invested 3 million pounds ($6 million) taking over a derelict church with walls and no roof near London's City financial district. That church is St. Luke's, where the orchestra rehearses and performs, and UBS conducts its music outreach programs. The original Corinthian columns can still be seen, embedded in brick in the performance hall.

UBS's relationship with the LSO has many prongs. Aside from funding the orchestra and its performances abroad, UBS helps train music teachers, and has professional musicians play for classrooms in the East London area of Hackney. That program is now being extended to 10 different London boroughs, with 50 young instrumentalists getting special tuition at its expense.

LSO musicians give concerts once a month inside the bank's headquarters. Members of the LSO administration are in a joint orchestra with UBS employees.

``The orchestra couldn't survive without its principal partners,'' said LSO Managing Director Kathryn McDowell, who also spoke at the presentation. The other principal partners, she said, are Rolls Royce Group Plc, and Japan's Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.

Continue reading at Bloomberg.com

Next article » Penthouse: Family Treasures

Previous article « First Class: Arab Chic