Credit Suisse posts 24 per cent profit jump and merges investment arms
Credit Suisse hailed a huge 24 per cent rise in net profit today as it revealed its plan to combine its global markets and investment banking divisions.
The Swiss banking giant also began a cost-cutting exercise to save around 400m Swiss francs per year.
“The measures we outline today are the right ones to further strengthen our integrated model, being a global leader in wealth management with strong global investment banking capabilities,” chief executive Thomas Gottstein said in a statement.
The figures
Credit Suisse recorded net income of 1.16bn Swiss francs, up 24 per cent year on year. That far surpassed analyst expectations of 838.9m francs for the three-month period through to the end of June.
The bank also set aside 568m francs to deal with potential loan losses, and added another 296m francs during the second quarter.
Revenues rose to 6.2bn francs, up from 5.58m francs this time last year.
It also marginally improved its capital CET1 ratio, from 12.1 per cent at the end of the first quarter to 12.5 per cent.
Credit Suisse bumped up its return on tangible equity (RoTE) – a key measure of banks’ profitability – from 9.7 per cent this time last year to 11 per cent.
What Credit Suisse said
CEO Gottstein said: “In a continued volatile market environment, we delivered a strong performance. Despite persistent challenges caused by COVID-19, our employees again showed outstanding commitment and dedication.
“Amid the turbulent market environment, we were also able to improve our CET1 ratio in the second quarter to 12.5 per cent. Having achieved strong results in the first half of the year, we would like to take this opportunity to reaffirm our strategy and to announce several structural changes, which we will implement going forward.
“The changes should allow us to extract significant potential to improve effectiveness and efficiency, navigate the current environment with the necessary far-sightedness, and to unlock additional growth potential in the future to the benefit of our clients.”