UBS has hired more than 1,000 staff in Greater China for its investment bank in the past 18 months, including around 100 people to help produce local-language research in Mandarin.

The aggressive recruitment campaign is part of the recovery strategy put in place last year by Carsten Kengeter, chief executive of the investment bank and a Mandarin-speaker from his days running the Asian fixed-income business at Goldman Sachs.