Office address: 11 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10010
Website: ubs.com/us/en/collections/credit-suisse-ip
Year established: 1856
Company type: financial services
Employees: 45,000+ (2023)
Expertise: investment banking advisory, capital markets financing, equities sales and trading, fixed income and credit products, prime brokerage and financing, global securities execution, institutional research and market insight
Parent company: UBS Group AG Key people: Sergio Ermotti (CEO), Mike Dargan (chief operations and technology officer), Damian Vogel (group CRO), Iqbal Khan and Marco Valla (presidents), Beatriz Jimenez (head non-core and legacy), Michelle Bereaux (group integration officer)
Financing status: corporate‑backed or acquired
Credit Suisse, which used to be a global systemically important bank (G-SIB), now runs as a legacy investment bank under UBS. The unit offers securities trading and prime brokerage to institutional clients. It was a Federal Reserve primary dealer before UBS bought it for $3.2 billion in 2023.
Alfred Escher, a Swiss politician and railway advocate, founded Credit Suisse in Zurich in 1856. The company was originally named "Schweizerische Kreditanstalt," which translates to Swiss Credit Institution in German.
Escher wanted to finance Switzerland's railway expansion without depending on French banks that sought control. The bank's early loans helped build Switzerland's electrical grid and connect the European rail systems.
The company moved into retail banking in the 1900s as Switzerland's middle class expanded. The bank partnered with US investment firm First Boston in 1978 and bought a controlling stake a decade later.
From 1990 to 2000, Credit Suisse snapped up Winterthur Group, Swiss Volksbank, and Bank Leu among others. These deals turned the firm into one of the largest financial institutions in the world.
In 2008, the company held up better than most competitors when the financial crisis struck. But the bank later faced multiple tax avoidance investigations. This includes the "Suisse Secrets" scandal, which was a massive 2022 data leak exposing accounts held by criminals and corrupt officials.
Credit Suisse pleaded guilty and paid $2.6 billion in fines between 2008 and 2012. The firm still managed CHF 1.3 trillion in assets by the end of 2022.
The firm faced a liquidity crisis in early 2023, and the Swiss government had to step in. UBS agreed to buy its longtime rival for $3.2 billion in March 2023, and closed the deal that June. By late 2023, UBS reported $22 billion in wealth management inflows, with $3 billion coming from Credit Suisse's unit.
Credit Suisse AG, the Swiss parent bank, ceased to exist in May 2024, and the Swiss retail bank was deregistered two months later. It now operates as a legacy division under UBS, with its US arm still regulated by the SEC.
Credit Suisse offers investment banking and wealth management through UBS's global platform:
The firm serves financial institutions, corporations, governments, and private clients worldwide. Its US operations remain regulated by the SEC under UBS ownership.
Credit Suisse now operates under UBS and follows the combined firm's priorities since the 2023 acquisition. The legacy unit focuses on serving clients while maintaining a careful approach to risk, according to UBS:
Credit Suisse aims to be part of a bank that clients, employees, and investors can take pride in. The unit now sits within what UBS calls the only truly global wealth manager with scale in key growth markets.
Sergio P. Ermotti serves as group CEO of UBS, a role he previously held from 2011 to 2020. Before rejoining in 2023, Ermotti was chair at Swiss Re and a senior executive at UniCredit and Merrill Lynch. He attended the University of Oxford's advanced management program.
These executives lead Credit Suisse under UBS's group executive board:
Swiss banking law requires UBS to maintain a dual board structure. The board of directors delegates day-to-day management to the group executive board.
Credit Suisse carried unresolved legal issues from its 2014 tax evasion guilty plea into the UBS merger. The bank had admitted to helping US clients hide wealth but later failed to report all hidden accounts. UBS set aside $4 billion to address these legacy matters and keep the integration on track.
Credit Suisse also left behind an unresolved mortgage securities case from 2017. The bank had faced allegations of selling risky loans before the 2008 financial crisis under a $5 billion settlement. UBS paid $300 million to close out the remaining obligations and put another legacy issue to rest.
Hedge funds lagged the equity markets in July, as many of these alternative asset class managers now appear to be proceeding with caution after several consecutive months of strong gains.
Hard-hit Swiss bank UBS AG reported another quarterly loss today while France's BNP Paribas posted a 6.6 percent increase in net profit.
Swiss bank Credit Suisse Group today reported a 29 percent increase in second quarter net profit after a strong performance in its investment unit drove up core revenues.
Investors should prepare for a roller-coaster ride for the rest of the year as equity markets struggle to make headway.
An analysis of the hedge fund industry’s first-quarter activity indicates that the $1.3 trillion industry is stabilizing, according to Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Index LLC in New York.
Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse on Thursday reported a first-quarter net profit of 2 billion Swiss francs ($1.72 billion), following a turnaround in its investment bank, which had previously been hit hard by the credit crunch.
Shares of Lincoln National Corp. fell today as the insurer prepared to pay down $500 million in debt.
Finra securities arbitration panels have handed investors two huge wins in recent months, but lawyers and industry observers are divided about whether such noticeable awards signal favorably for investors.
Oswald Grubel, the new chief executive of beleaguered UBS AG will likely will take a “fresh, hard look” at the Swiss banking giant’s retail-brokerage business.
The chief investment officer of Stanford Financial Group appeared in federal court Friday as details emerged showing the head of the firm borrowed $1.6 billion from.
Blue-chip equities are less attractive than bonds thanks to plunging dividends, according to analysis published today by Bloomberg.
While equity markets have shown little signs of rebounding, hedge fund strategies considerably improved their performance last month.
Credit Suisse Securities has been ordered by an arbitration panel to cash out an institutional client that held $400 million in collateralized debt obligations.
The CEO of Silvercrest Asset Management talks about the firm and offers advice to young advisers.
October was another tough month for hedge funds, as the ripple effects of the global credit crunch continued to force managers to unwind portfolio positions.
