ZURICH (Reuters) – Credit Suisse announced on Thursday a strategic revamp aiming to turn the corner on years of scandals, losses and executive upheaval at a financial insitution with deep roots in Swiss business and society.
Here is how the bank has developed over time:
1856
Politician and business leader Alfred Escher founds Schweizerische Kreditanstalt (SKA) to finance the expansion of the railroad network and promote Swiss industrialisation.
1870
SKA opens its first foreign representative office in New York.
1876
The bank moves into its new headquarters on Zurich’s Paradeplatz; its first branch outside Zurich opens in Basel nearly three decades later.
1934
First Boston becomes the first publicly held investment bank in the United States.
1939
SKA creates Swiss American Corporation (New York) to focus on the underwriting and investment business.
1962
SKA takes over White, Weld and Co AG in Zurich from U.S. investment bank White Weld, and renames the business Clariden Finanz AG.
1964
SKA gets a license as a full-service bank in New York.
1977
The Chiasso Affair money-laundering scandal leads to a historic loss and spurs the bank’s transition to an international financial group.
1982
SKA becomes the first Swiss bank with a seat on the New York Stock Exchange via its SASI unit; CS Holding is set up as a sister company of SKA to hold stakes in industrial companies.
1988
CS Holding buys a 45% stake in First Boston as part of a rescue deal, and renames it CS First Boston; the two had first linked up a decade earlier to operate in the London bond market.
1989
CS Holding becomes the SKA group’s parent company.
1990
The group takes a controlling stake in U.S. investment bank CS First Boston and buys Bank Leu, a Swiss private bank.
1993
The group buys Volksbank, Switzerland’s fourth-largest bank, and a year later buys Neue Aargauer Bank.
1997
A reorganisation turns CS Holding into Credit Suisse Group and drops the SKA name; it also buys insurer Winterthur, a strategic partner.
1999
The group buys the asset management business of Warburg, Pincus & Co, followed by the purchase of Wall Street firm Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette a year later.
2002
A reorganisation creates two units: Credit Suisse Financial Services and Credit Suisse First Boston; two years later it splits into three units by adding Winterthur.
2005
Credit Suisse and CSFB merge and stop using the Credit Suisse First Boston brand name.
2006
The group divests Winterthur to French insurer AXA.
2007
The group merges four private banking units and a securities trading company into Clariden Leu.
2007/2008
The bank survives the global financial crisis without needing a state bailout, unlike rival UBS.
2012
The group absorbs Clariden Leu and merges private banking and asset management into one division.
2013
The group buys Morgan Stanley’s wealth management businesses in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
2015
The group realigns under CEO Tidjane Thiam into three wealth management divisions supported by two investment banking divisions.
2020
In February, a scandal over the bank’s covert surveillance operations leads to CEO Thiam’s departure.
In March, U.S. investment fund Archegos implodes, saddling Credit Suisse with a $5.5 billion loss. The same month it has to freeze $10 billion in supply chain finance funds linked to insolvent British financier Greensill Capital, which the bank had marketed to clients as low-risk products.
2021
Antonio Horta-Osorio resigns as chairman less than nine months after joining the bank, after breaching COVID-19 quarantine rules. Alex Lehmann replaces him.
JULY 2022
The bank names hard-nosed restructuring expert Ulrich Koerner as CEO to replace Thomas Gottstein and announces another strategic review.
OCTOBER 2022
The bank announces a sweeping plan to refocus on banking for the wealthy, including a 4 billion Swiss franc ($4 billion) capital raising, a headcount reduction of 9,000 jobs by end-2025, and separating out its investment bank to create CS First Boston; Saudi National Bank says it will buy shares giving it a stake of as much as 9.9%.
(Reporting by Michael Shields; Editing by Edmund Klamann)
