Credit Suisse warns of 'significant' losses from exiting hedge fund positions

ZURICH: Credit Suisse's first quarter results could suffer a material impact after the bank started exiting positions after a US-based hedge fund defaulted on margin calls it made, the bank said on Monday.

"While at this time it is premature to quantify the exact size of the loss resulting from this exit, it could be highly significant and material to our first quarter results," the bank said.

Switzerland's second biggest lender said the un-named hedge fund defaulted on margin calls made last week by Credit Suisse and other banks. A margin call is a demand from a broker to add more money to an account to cover potential losses.

Following the failure of the fund to meet these margin commitments, Credit Suisse and a number of other banks are in the process of exiting these positions, Credit Suisse said.

Credit Suisse said it would provide an update on the matter in "due course."

The warning is a further blow to the bank which is considering compensating investors hit by the collapse of funds linked to insolvent finance firm Greensill.

The Swiss lender this month closed around $10 billion of supply-chain finance funds that bought notes from Greensill. Of this, $3.1 billion has so far been repaid and more than $1.2 billion in cash remains in the funds, leaving more than $5 billion outstanding.