TIMELINE-UBS

April 1 (Reuters)

Following is a timeline on UBS since the start of the financial crisis:
May 3, 2007 -- UBS shocks investors by closing its Dillon Read hedge fund unit, which had a reputation as a serial outperformer, after it posted lower-than-expected results.

Oct. 1 -- UBS warns a 4 billion Swiss franc ($3.45 billion) subprime hit would cause a third-quarter pretax loss. A few weeks later, UBS reports a quarterly loss of 726 million Swiss francs, its first quarterly loss in nine years.

Jan. 30, 2008 -- UBS announces another writedown, this time for $4 billion. Two weeks later the bank posts a full-year loss of 4.4 billion Swiss francs. Shareholders back an $11.9 billion capital injection from Singapore and a Middle East investor.

April 1 -- UBS doubles its writedowns, dumps its chairman, Marcel Ospel, and seeks more emergency capital. It proposes its lawyer, Peter Kurer, as Ospel's successor.
- Activist investor and former chief executive Luqman Arnold then demands UBS shake up its governance and structure.

May 6 -- UBS says it will axe 5,500 jobs and sell billions of dollars of ailing assets in a bid to break free from the subprime crisis.

June 19 -- A former UBS banker who once smuggled a client's diamonds into the U.S. in a toothpaste tube pleads guilty to helping a billionaire hide $200 million in assets from U.S. tax authorities, part of a broader tax evasion probe of UBS.

Aug. 12 -- UBS says it will separate its wealth management business from investment banking, acknowledging flaws in its one-bank strategy.

Oct. 16 -- UBS announces it is to get 6 billion Swiss francs from the Swiss government for a 9.3 percent stake and is to unload $60 billion of toxic assets into a new central bank fund.

Nov. 12 -- Raoul Weil, head of UBS AG's wealth management business, is charged with conspiring to help thousands of wealthy Americans hide $20 billion of assets from U.S. tax authorities in Swiss bank accounts.

Feb. 10, 2009 -- Posts the biggest ever annual loss for a Swiss company, but says client withdrawals reversed in January. It says it will axe 2,000 more jobs as it restructures to focus on wealth management.

Feb. 18 -- Agrees to pay $780 million and identify certain U.S. clients following criminal fraud charges that it assisted rich Americans to evade taxes.

Feb. 20 -- Warns that it could go out of business if it complies with an order to reveal names of thousands of suspected U.S. tax dodgers with secret offshore accounts at the bank.

Feb. 24 -- UBS may reportedly face a mini-trial in a U.S. court in July as it fights efforts to force it to disclose names of 52,000 U.S. clients suspected of offshore tax evasion. Feb. 26 -- UBS appoints Oswald Gruebel, former head of rival Credit Suisse, as chief executive, replacing Michael Rohner, CEO for the previous 18 months.

March 1 - Gruebel says that it could take two to three years to bring UBS back to making a sustainable profit.

March 4 -- Chairman Peter Kurer steps down and Kaspar Villiger, a former Swiss finance minister, is nominated as a replacement.

March 5 - Fitch Ratings cuts its ratings on UBS's preferred shares into junk territory, citing increased risks that weak earnings may lead to the bank deferring dividend payments on the securities.

March 11 - UBS revises its 2008 net loss to 20.9 billion Swiss francs ($18.06 billion) -- the biggest in Swiss corporate history -- from the previously reported 19.7 billion francs. UBS says it predicts tough times ahead.

March 19 - UBS says it would buy back up to 1 billion euros ($1.37 billion) of four bond issues to bolster its Tier-1 capital ratio, a measure of its ability to handle losses.

March 30 - A U.S. judge dismisses putative class action lawsuits seeking damages against UBS over allegations of securities fraud in the auction rate securities market. The first lawsuit was filed in March 2008.

April 1 - UBS appoints former Credit Suisse executive Ulrich Koerner as chief operating officer. Koerner has a track record as a "turnaround manager" at Credit Suisse.