Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse has reported a pre-tax loss of approximately CHF 900 million for 1Q 2021. In addition, the bank has informed the charges in the case of failure of US-based hedge fund, Archegos Capital Management, amount to CHF 4.4 billion (Rs 343.81 billion).
Meanwhile, the board of directors decided to pull up two top executives from the board for this fallout. This has resulted in Brian Chin, CEO of the Investment Bank and Lara Warner, Chief Risk and Compliance Officer stepping down from their respective position on April 30, 2021, and April 6, 2021, respectively.
The new CEO replacing Chin will be Christian Meissner, who earlier served as Credit Suisse’s Co-Head of IWM Investment Banking Advisory and Vice Chairman of Investment Banking since October 2020. He will join as CEO on May 1, 2021. Before this appointment, he held various senior positions at leading investment banks, including serving as Head of Global Corporate & Investment Banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Prior to that, he was at Lehman Brothers from 2004-2008, where he served as Co-Head of EMEA Investment Banking and subsequently was Co-Chief Executive Officer EMEA.
Replacing Warner is Joachim Oechslin but as an interim Chief Risk Officer and member of the Executive Board on an ad-interim basis, effective April 6, 2021. After having served as Chief Risk Officer and member of the Executive Board of Credit Suisse Group AG from January 2014 to February 2019, Oechslin had taken on the role as Senior Advisor and Chief of Staff to the CEO of Credit Suisse Group. Previously, Oechslin was Munich Re Group’s Chief Risk Officer from 2007.
In addition, Thomas Grotzer is appointed ad interim Global Head of Compliance, effective April 6, 2021. He has served as General Counsel and Member of the Executive Board of Credit Suisse (Schweiz) AG since 2016.
All three executives will report to Credit Suisse CEO Thomas Gottstein.
The Board of Directors has launched two investigations. This will be carried out by external parties. This is to investigate the supply chain finance funds matter and into the significant US-based hedge fund matter. These investigations will be supervised by a special committee of the Board of Directors and will not only focus on the direct issues arising from those matters, but also reflect on the broader consequences and lessons learned.