© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A man walks near the Credit Suisse bank headquarters in New York City, U.S., March 15, 2023. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo
ZURICH (Reuters) – Below is a timeline outlining the 167-year history of Credit Suisse Group, the Zurich-based bank that is in the midst of a restructuring to rebuild itself after a series of scandals, losses and changes in the management.
The bank began a decisive weekend on Saturday after some competitors turned cautious in their dealings with the bank and regulators urged it to seek a deal with Swiss rival UBS.
1856
Politician and business leader Alfred Escher founds the Schweizerische Kreditanstalt (SKA) to finance the expansion of the rail network and promote Swiss industrialization.
1870
SKA opens the first foreign representative office in New York.
1876
The bank moves to its new headquarters on Paradeplatz in Zurich; its first branch outside of Zurich opens in Basel almost three decades later.
1934
First Boston becomes the first publicly traded investment bank in the United States.
1939
SKA creates Swiss American Corporation (New York) to focus on underwriting and investment business.
1962
SKA acquires White, Weld and Co AG in Zurich from the US investment bank White Weld and renames it Clariden Finanz AG.
1964
SKA is licensed 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 to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange through its SASI unit; CS Holding is created as a sister company of SKA to have shares in industrial companies.
1988
CS Holding buys 45% stake in First Boston as part of redemption deal and changes name to CS First Boston; the two had first linked up a decade earlier to trade in the London bond market.
1989
CS Holding becomes the parent company of the SKA group.
1990
The group acquires a majority stake in US investment bank CS First Boston and buys Bank Leu, a Swiss private bank.
1993
The group buys Volksbank, the fourth largest bank in Switzerland, and a year later it buys Neue Aargauer Bank.
1997
A reorganization turns CS Holding into Credit Suisse Group and drops the SKA name; it also buys the Winterthur insurance company, 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 (DLJ) a year later.
2002
A reorganization creates two units: Credit Suisse Financial Services and Credit Suisse First Boston; two years later it is divided into three units by adding Winterthur.
2005
Credit Suisse and CSFB merge and cease to use the Credit Suisse First Boston brand.
2006
The group sells Winterthur to the 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 the need for a state bailout, unlike its rival UBS.
2012
The group absorbs Clariden Leu and merges private banking and asset management into a single division.
2013
the group buys Morgan Stanley (NYSE:) wealth management businesses in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
2015
The group is realigned under CEO Tidjane Thiam into three wealth management units supported by two investment banking divisions.
2020
In February, a scandal over the bank’s covert surveillance operations leads to Thiam’s departure.
In March, the US investment fund Archegos implodes, charging Credit Suisse with a $5.5 billion loss.
The same month it has to freeze $10bn in supply chain finance funds linked to insolvent British financier Greensill Capital, which had marketed to clients as low-risk products.
2021
Antonio Horta-Osorio resigns as president less than nine months after joining the bank, after breaking COVID-19 quarantine rules. Alex Lehmann replaces him.
JULY 2022
The bank names restructuring expert Ulrich Koerner as CEO to replace Thomas Gottstein and announces another strategic review.
OCTOBER 2022
Announces sweeping plan to refocus banking for the rich, including a 4 billion Swiss franc ($4 billion) capital increase, a 9,000 job cut by the end of 2025, and the separation of its bank investment to create CS First Boston.
Saudi National Bank says it will buy shares, giving it a stake of up to 9.9%.
MARCH 2023
Credit Suisse’s 2022 annual report identifies “material weaknesses” in internal controls over financial reporting.
The bank also said customer outflows had stabilized but had “not yet reversed.”
Shares of the Swiss bank fall as much as 30% after its largest shareholder, the Saudi National Bank, said it could not provide further support due to regulatory restrictions.
Credit Suisse secures a $54 billion lifeline from the Swiss central bank to shore up liquidity, the first major global bank to raise emergency funds since the 2008 financial crisis.
The Swiss authorities guarantee that Credit Suisse has met “the capital and liquidity requirements imposed on systemically important banks.”
At least four major banks, including Societe Generale (OTC:) SA and Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE:), are restricting new business involving Credit Suisse or its securities, according to five sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
Credit Suisse Chief Financial Officer Dixit Joshi and his teams will hold meetings over the weekend to assess strategic scenarios for the bank, other people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Friday.
