Finance · Profile from Finance Research Companion
Credit Suisse Group AG
The 167-year-old Zurich bank, founded in 1856 to finance Swiss railways, that bought its way into Wall Street through First Boston (1988–90) and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (2000), spent the 2010s paying billions to US authorities for tax evasion and mortgage-securities misconduct, lost ~$5.5bn in its New York prime-brokerage business when Archegos Capital defaulted in March 2021 (weeks after it froze ~$10bn of Greensill-linked supply-chain funds), haemorrhaged client money after an October 2022 social-media panic, and on 19 March 2023, nine days after Silicon Valley Bank failed, was forced by the Swiss government into a takeover by UBS for ~CHF 3bn, with ~CHF 16bn of its AT1 bonds written to zero. It was the first global systemically important bank (G-SIB) to fail since the 2008 crisis, and its collapse was a US story as much as a Swiss one: the losses that broke it were booked in New York.
At a glance
- Founded
- 1856, Zurich, as Schweizerische Kreditanstalt (SKA), by Alfred Escher
- Headquarters
- Paradeplatz, Zurich, Switzerland; main US hub at Eleven Madison Avenue, New York
- Ownership / structure
- Listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange and NYSE (ADRs, ticker CS) until 2023; holding company Credit Suisse Group AG; principal bank Credit Suisse AG; US intermediate holding company Credit Suisse Holdings (USA), Inc., with broker-dealer Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC
- Leadership at collapse
- Ulrich Körner, CEO (from August 2022); Axel Lehmann, chairman (from January 2022); Dixit Joshi, CFO
- Segment
- Global universal bank: wealth management, Swiss retail and corporate bank, asset management, investment banking (advisory, underwriting, sales and trading, prime services)
- Scale
- Total assets ~CHF 531bn at end-2022 (down from ~CHF 756bn at end-2021); assets under management ~CHF 1.29tn at end-2022 (reported, verify); ~50,000 employees; one of 30 G-SIBs designated by the Financial Stability Board
- Profit
- Net losses attributable to shareholders of ~CHF 1.65bn (2021) and ~CHF 7.3bn (2022), its largest since 2008 (company)
- Capital at the end
- CET1 ratio ~14.1% at end-2022, well above requirements (company)
- Price of the end
- UBS paid ~CHF 3bn in its own shares (one UBS share per 22.48 Credit Suisse shares) on 19 March 2023; ~CHF 16bn of AT1 bonds written down to zero by FINMA; the deal closed 12 June 2023
- Signature moves (incl. failures)
- Taking control of First Boston (1988–90); the DLJ acquisition (2000); US tax-evasion guilty plea (2014) and RMBS settlement (2017); Thiam's wealth pivot and the spying scandal (2015–20); Greensill supply-chain finance funds (2021); Archegos and the end of prime services (2021); the October 2022 restructuring and CS First Boston plan; collapse and UBS takeover (2023); AT1 litigation and the US legal tail (2023–26)
9 strategic moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
1988
First Boston Takeover and CSFB
Acquisition (staged, ending in a rescue recapitalisation)
2000
DLJ Acquisition
Acquisition
2014
US Tax Plea and RMBS Settlement
Regulatory settlement (criminal guilty plea, 2014; civil mortgage-securities settlement, 2017)
2015
Thiam Wealth Pivot and Spying Scandal
Restructuring / strategy pivot, ending in a governance failure
2021
Archegos Prime Brokerage Losses
Failure (counterparty default and exit from a business)
2021
Greensill Supply Chain Finance Funds
Product failure (fund freeze and liquidation)
2022
Restructuring CS First Boston and Capital Raise
Restructuring / capital raise / planned spin-off
2023
Collapse and UBS Takeover
Failure / government-arranged forced merger
2025
AT1 Litigation and US Aftermath
Litigation / regulatory settlement / post-failure resolution