Credit Suisse shares sink after biggest loss since 2008 financial crisis

GENEVA: Credit Suisse stocks plunged nearly 15 percent on Thursday as the scandal-plagued Swiss banking giant posted its biggest annual loss since the 2008 financial crisis — and warned it expects to stay in the red in 2023.

Switzerland’s second-biggest bank, which unveiled a dramatic restructuring plan in October aimed at stopping the rot, reported a net loss of 7.3 billion Swiss francs ($7.9 billion) for 2022.

It was the worst yearly set of results for the Zurich-based lender since it shed more than eight billion Swiss francs during the global financial crisis 15 years ago.

The results sent shares plummeting, closing down 14.7 percent at 2.77 Swiss francs a share, while the Swiss stock exchange’s main SMI index was down 0.5 percent.

Since March 2021, the bank’s stock has lost more than 75 percent of its value. The bank’s restructuring focuses on drastically reducing the scale of its investment banking unit, which was at the heart of a string of scandals that included the collapse of US fund Archegos.

Citing the impact from restructuring charges and its exit from non-core businesses, Credit Suisse said in a statement that it “would also expect the group to report a substantial loss before taxes in 2023”.

The restructuring costs are estimated at around 1.6 billion Swiss francs this year and around one billion francs in 2024.

Chief executive Ulrich Korner said the bank had “a clear plan to create a new Credit Suisse”.

In the last quarter, its net loss attributable to shareholders amounted to nearly 1.4 billion Swiss francs.

“A weak fourth quarter concludes a terrible 2022, clearly one of the worst years in Credit Suisse’s 167-year history,” said Andreas Venditti, an analyst at Swiss investment managers Vontobel, noting that the bank reported losses in seven out of the last nine quarters. “2024 might bring a turnaround, albeit with likely still minor profits. The transformation to ‘new Credit Suisse’ will take time.”