Things must be bad at accident-prone investment bank Credit Suisse as it is cutting bonuses as well as axing senior executives.
The Swiss bank has had a torrid few weeks in which it took collateral damage from the collapse of Greensill Capital, the supply chain finance specialist, and Archegos, the US hedge fund, and some people were sure to pay the price; those people appear to be its chief risk officer, Lara Warner, and Brian Chin, its investment banking boss, who will leave the bank this month.
The company announced on Tuesday it would take a SF4.4bn (£3.4bn) write-down in relation to the demise of Archegos Capital Management, leading to a loss of around SF900mln in the first quarter of 2021.
Bonuses for top executives – those who have not been sacked – have been scrapped, while shareholders have not escaped the fall-out as the dividend has been pared to SF0.10 from previous plans to pay out SF0.29.
Chairman Urs Ohner, who announced his impending departure a year ago after a hugely embarrassing scandal in which the bank was found to be spying on some of its own executives, will waive the £1.2mln or so fee he had previously claimed for his work over the last year.
“I recognise that these cases have caused significant concern amongst all our stakeholders,” said chief executive officer Thomas Gottstein, fresh from Easter weekend reading of ‘How to do understatement’.
“Together with the board of directors, we are fully committed to addressing these situations. Serious lessons will be learned,” Gottstein pledged.
Neil Wilson of markets.com said the fallout from the Archegos scandal continues to reveal more damage.
“Credit Suisse said it will take a charge of $4.7 billion and now expects a first-quarter pre-tax loss of around $960 million. Investment Bank CEO Brian Chin and chief risk & compliance officer Lara Warner are falling on their swords. There is a point to be made here about conflating Risk (are counterparties good for the dosh?) with Compliance (are counterparties terrorists?). Clearly, the two are not easily combined. Indeed I cannot think why a trading or investing business would think the two are complementary in any way. Antonio Horta-Osorio will have his work cut out when he joins as chairman,” Wilson said.