Swiss bank shifts 1 million customers to new entity
(21 November 2016 – Switzerland) Swiss banking giant, Credit Suisse has moved more than one million customers into a new bank which went live last week, signalling a step toward what could be the country’s biggest stock market listing in more than a decade.
The creation of the new subsidiary that caters for Swiss retail, corporate, private and investment banking clients follows a broader company restructure Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam to focus more on wealth management and less on investment banking, an area many European banks are scaling back in.
"Setting up the legal entity is a pre-condition on the way to the IPO," Frank Schubert, project leader for the Swiss legal entity, said, referring to the initial public offering (IPO) plans.
Executives of the new bank - Credit Suisse (Schweiz) AG – are hoping it could command a valuation of around 20 billion Swiss francs (A$26.5 billion), according to sources.
Credit Suisse Group has a market capitalisation of about 30 billion francs.
The bank hopes the listing will highlight a part of Credit Suisse the bank believes is undervalued while also paving the way for acquisitions of smaller Swiss banks.
The plan is for the IPO to raise 2 billion to 4 billion francs by selling 20-30 percent of Credit Suisse (Schweiz) AG, which is run by Credit Suisse veteran Thomas Gottstein. A valuation at the top end of that range would make it bigger than any Swiss initial public offering since 2001.
The new legal entity going live has involved the transfer of around 1.4 million clients into the new bank and the creation of a board of directors.
Credit Suisse AG has been created mainly from the group's Swiss universal banking business, one of three regional divisions set up in Thiam's restructure alongside Asia Pacific and International Wealth Management.
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