ZURICH, March 2 (Reuters) - Swiss National Bank's Chairman, Jean-Pierre Roth, said on Monday toxic assets transferred from UBS's balance sheet to a fund set up by the central bank had fallen further in value.
"The illiquid assets have actually lost more of their value, but this underlines how important it was to get them off the balance sheet of UBS," Roth said in a speech at Frankfurt, adding the creation of the so-called StabFund was a success.
UBS, which is struggling to rebuild its once powerful brand after massive investments into risky U.S. assets forced it to make more writedowns than any other European bank, accepted a 6 billion Swiss franc boost from the Swiss government in October.
At the same time, the SNB announced the fund for illiquid securities and other troubled assets from UBS, which would involve a long-term financing and orderly liquidation of the toxic assets.
In February, the SNB said it had cut the size of the StabFund by a third to just under $40 billion.
UBS would keep securities backed by student loans and assets that have been wrapped by monoline insurers on its balance sheet, reducing the maximum volume of assets to be transferred to the central bank-run fund to $39.1 billion, from an originally announced $60 billion.
The SNB will publish its annual report on Wednesday, which is likely to include more details on the StabFund. (Reporting by Katie Reid and Sven Egenter; Editing by Andrew Macdonald)