Credit Suisse registers net income increase of 69% in 2019

Credit Suisse Group has earlier today posted its financial results for the final quarter and full year 2019, with earnings staging a steep rise from a year earlier, but the Group being rather silent regarding the recent changes affecting its top management. There was also no update regarding the decision of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) to appoint an independent auditor to investigate Credit Suisse in the context of its observation activities.

Instead, there was a rosy statement by outgoing CEO Tidjane Thiam who praised the performance of Credit Suisse over the past year:

“I am proud of what Credit Suisse has achieved during my tenure. We have turned Credit Suisse around, and our 2019 results show we can be sustainably profitable.”

The results that Credit Suisse posted today are, indeed, robust, especially when it comes to net income which jumped 69% from 2018 levels to reach CHF 3.4 billion in 2019. Net revenues for 2019 amounted to CHF 22.5 billion, up 7% from the previous year.

The final quarter of 2019 included major litigation provisions of CHF 326 million. For the full year 2019, the provision was CHF 389 million.

Including these litigation provisions, total operating expenses for 2019 were CHF 17.4 billion, compared to CHF 17.3 billion in 2018. This translates into a rise of 1%.

Outgoing CEO Tidjane Thiam noted that the major legal provisions were due to legacy matters.

Earlier in February, when Credit Suisse accepted the resignation of Mr Thiame, he insisted he was not aware of the observation of his former colleagues. The scandal has led to increased regulatory scrutiny for the bank.

The latest scandal concerns the observation of Peter Goerke, a Member of the Executive Board at the time, He was placed under observation by a third-party firm on behalf of Credit Suisse for a period of several days in February 2019.

Credit Suisse said back in December that its Board of Directors had carried out internal and, with the support of Homburger AG, external investigations into this matter.

The investigation concluded that Pierre-Olivier Bouée, a former Member of the Executive Board, issued the mandate to have Peter Goerke put under observation. As was the case with Iqbal Khan, this observation was carried out via an intermediary.