PRESS RELEASE

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Crédit Suisse Posts First Full-Year Loss Since 2008: CEO Suffers from Hysteria

Feb. 4, 2016 (EIRNS)—Crédit Suisse, Switzerland’s second-largest bank and one of Europe’s top "systemic" banks, posted its first full-year loss (for 2015) since 2008. According to CNBC the bank posted a full-year pre-tax loss of 2.4 billion Swiss francs ($2.38 billion) in the fourth quarter. The net loss came in at SFr2.9 billion. The bank tried to claim the main cause of the loss to have been a SFr3.8 billion goodwill impairment mainly related to the acquisition of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ) in 2000.

In announcing the loss, CEO Tidjane Thiam seemed to be suffering from hysteria. In presenting the news, he first talked about the next period being "challenging," but then said that now is the time to buy banks! Why? Because the "world would have to come to an end" before banks would prove to be risky. Because of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), which monitors the global financial system,

"global banks, systemically important banks will have raised $4 trillion of additional capital.... There is no scenario where the banking sector blows up today. All those doomsday scenarios are not justified."

The "markets" did not seem to agree with him; Crédit Suisse shares dove by 9% in early trading.

Like Switzerland’s largest bank, UBS, Thiam proclaimed that the bank’s strategy is to scale back the investment banking business in favor of wealth management—which, in the universal banking casino, really means nothing.

Of course, he also uses the buzz terms, such as "legacy issues": "It’s a clean-up and a turnaround. There is the need to deal with some legacy issues," Thiam told CNBC.

On top of this, Crédit Suisse will shed some 4,000 jobs.