Financial Results
Credit Suisse Flags Higher Q1 Private Banking Numbers

Switzerland's second-biggest bank, now under a new CEO, issued an upbeat message yesterday about the overall shape of its financial performance ahead of first-quarter results to be announced later in April.
Credit Suisse,
which will report Q1 2020 figures on 23 April, yesterday said
that so far private banking revenues in this quarter are rising
from the same period a year ago, buoyed by higher transaction
turnover, while sales and trading volumes are up in its markets
businesses.
The Zurich-listed bank issued the guidance for investors at a
time when global equity markets have slumped by about 25 per cent
since the start of this year, with volatility levels surging.
Lower market levels, unless they recover, are sure to hammer
assets under management.
Switzerland’s second-largest bank said: “In our wealth management
businesses, overall private banking revenues so far this quarter
are up compared to the same period last year, benefiting from
higher transaction revenues.”
“The teams across our markets businesses have done an excellent
job in these volatile markets and, as a consequence, sales and
trading revenues are significantly higher quarter to date
compared to the same period in 1Q 2019. This so far has offset
the negative impact of the market environment on the execution of
our primary capital markets pipeline,” it continued.
Credit Suisse said that its return on tangible equity is above 10
per cent for the first two months of the year, and its pre-tax
income for the same period exceeds the SFr1.06 billion reported
for the whole of 1Q 2019.
Such performance, if borne out by the figures released later in
April, may add to perceptions that while he left the bank in
controversial circumstances a few weeks ago, former chief
executive Tidjane Thiam certainly had bequeathed a solid
financial base. (Thiam has been succeeded by Thomas Gottstein.)
In 2019, Credit Suisse logged SFr3.419 billion ($3.47 billion) in
income attributable to shareholders, surging by 69 per cent from
the year before. Net revenues rose by 7 per cent to SFr22.484
billion.
“Notwithstanding the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant volatile
market environment, profitability in 1Q 2020 has so far continued
the strong year-on-year improvement trend as already noted in our
4Q 2019 earnings release,” the bank said.
The bank said that it “continues to benefit” from a stronger
capital base after starting its restructuring in 2015.
“Together with the benefit of the cumulative growth in our stable
deposit base and of our lower exposures compared to previous
periods in areas such as leveraged finance and the oil and gas
sector, this has substantially increased our resilience and
preparedness for the impact of the spread of COVID-19 and the
consequent market and economic volatility,” it said.
“The impact of the pandemic on our financial results going
forward remains difficult to assess at this stage and we continue
to monitor our credit exposures prudently in light of these
conditions,” it added.