Credit Suisse announced sweeping changes to its strategy and leadership in an attempt to pivot from risky, failed investment ventures and back toward its historic specialty of wealth management.
The Swiss bank plans to restructure over the next three years, including selling off a portion of its investment banking business to Apollo Global Management and shrinking its employee headcount by 2,700 (5 percent) in 2023 and by 9,000 by 2025.
Credit Suisse also said it plans to revive a brand it had mothballed in 2006, CS First Boston, which will be an independent investment bank that will take over what had been Credit Suisse investment bank’s capital markets and advisory activities.
News from the bank came in a torrent Thursday; it also introduced new Chief Compliance Officer Nita Patel and announced plans to inject 4 billion Swiss francs (U.S. $4 billion) worth of capital into the bank. The proposed changes came with Credit Suisse disclosing its third-quarter results, including a net loss of about 4 billion Swiss francs.
“The third quarter, and more broadly 2022 so far, have been significantly impacted by the continued challenging market and macroeconomic conditions, leading to a weaker performance for our investment bank in particular,” said Group Chief Executive Ulrich Körner. “Our recent group level performance has been disappointing for our stakeholders. From today, we are taking a series of decisive actions to refocus Credit Suisse around the needs of our clients and stakeholders.”
Michael Klein, who served on Credit Suisse’s board of directors, will step down to become CEO designate of CS First Boston, pending regulatory approvals. A capital release unit will be created to wind down some of Credit Suisse’s “nonstrategic, low-return, and higher-risk businesses” and will be led by Louise Kitchen, effective Nov. 1. Kitchen, who will report directly to Chief Financial Officer Dixit Joshi, recently served as head of the capital release group and member of the group management committee at Deutsche Bank.
Christian Meissner, who served as CEO of the investment bank, will step down immediately, the bank said.
Credit Suisse is still seeking to reestablish itself following a disastrous 2021 that included more than $5 billion in losses from the collapse of U.S. hedge fund Archegos Capital Management. The bank was also exposed by the collapse of U.K. supply chain startup Greensill Capital, for which the losses have yet to be completely tallied but are expected to surpass $1.7 billion.
Patel has worked at Credit Suisse since 2021, serving as chief compliance officer of the asset management division and U.K. investment bank. She will report to Körner, effective Nov. 1.
Patel previously worked for 18 years at Goldman Sachs, where she held various senior compliance roles across the asset management and markets divisions. She succeeds Rafael Lopez Lorenzo, who stepped down for family reasons, the bank said.
Lorenzo, who had been named Credit Suisse’s CCO in September 2021, will be appointed nonexecutive member of the board of Credit Suisse Bank S.A. in Spain, subject to regulatory approval.
On Monday, Credit Suisse announced it reached a settlement with the Parquet National Financier in France to pay a total of 238 million euros (U.S. $237 million) to resolve a legacy investigation into “historical cross-border private-banking services.” The bank avoided criminal penalties with the settlement, which involved “illegal canvassing of customers and aggravated laundering of tax fraud between 2005 and 2012,” according to a translated report from French newspaper Le Monde.
No comments yet