Credit Suisse chairman apologizes amid fury from shareholders

The Credit Suisse chairman has apologized for pushing the Swiss bank to the brink of collapse as he faces shareholder fury over the demise of Switzerland’s second-largest financial institution.

The emergency takeover of the bank by Swiss rival UBS has bypassed Credit Suisse shareholders.

Tuesday’s latest shareholder meeting marks a disgraceful end for the 167-year-old bank founded by Alfred Escher, a Swiss tycoon nicknamed King Alfred I, who helped build the country’s railways and later the bank.

Protesters gathered outside the meeting site, some lifting an overturned boat to retract the end of the levee.

Inside, chairman Axel Lehmann apologized, saying he ran out of time to turn the bank over, despite believing “until the fateful week begins” that the bank could survive.

“I’m really sorry,” Lehmann said. “I apologize that we have no longer been able to stem the loss of confidence.”

After years of scandal and losses, Credit Suisse came to the brink of collapse before UBS bought it in a deal engineered and financed by the Swiss government.

“Until the end, we fought hard to find a solution. But in the end, there were only two options: deal or bankruptcy. The merger had to happen,” Lehmann said.

Shareholder advisory firm Ethos criticized the “greed and incompetence of its executives” as well as salaries that have reached “unimaginable heights” as it prepared to challenge executives at the meeting.

“Shareholders have lost significant sums of money and thousands of jobs are at risk,” he said.

The meeting is the first time that Chairman Lehmann and Chief Executive Officer Ulrich Koerner have addressed shareholders publicly since the acquisition.

Credit Suisse had been trying to put its past behind it and restructure itself before a shock triggered by the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank in the US sent it into a tailspin.

After a run on deposits, the Swiss government approached UBS, which agreed to buy Credit Suisse for CHF 3 billion ($3.3 billion), a fraction of its previous market value.

The move angered not only shareholders, but many in Switzerland. A survey by the company gfs.bern showed that the majority of Swiss do not support the agreement.

“The government’s use of emergency powers to implement this agreement goes beyond legal and democratic norms,” ​​said Dominik Gross of the Swiss Alliance of Development Organizations.

Source: Terra

Rose

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