Credit Suisse annual report delayed as regulator intervenes
CREDIT Suisse shares have dropped to a new record low after US regulators questioned the beleaguered bank about its accounts.
The stock fell more than 5pc to as little as Sfr2.51 (£2.25) in Zurich after the lender announced that publication of its annual report would be delayed following a call late on Wednesday evening from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Credit Suisse said the issue raised by the SEC was of a technical nature regarding revisions to the company’s cash flow statements for 2019 and 2020. It added that the 2022 financial results were not affected by the intervention.
The bank said: “Management believes it is prudent to briefly delay the publication of its accounts in order to understand more thoroughly the comments received.”
The bank said the regulator’s intervention regarded “certain open SEC comments about the technical assessment of previously disclosed revisions to the consolidated cash flow statements in the years ended Dec 31 2020 and 2019”.
The bank had revised how it booked a series of cash flows, including sharebased compensation. It comes as a new management team at the scandal-hit lender embarks on a drastic overhaul of the business. Credit Suisse disclosed last month that it had suffered its biggest annual loss since the 2008 financial crisis in 2022.
The bank has lurched from crisis to crisis in recent years, suffering a series of costly mishaps that have driven its share price down more than 60pc in the past 12 months alone.
It lost former chief executive Tidjane Thiam following a row over spying in 2020. His replacement, Thomas Gottstein, quit two years later.
In October, Ulrich Körner, the bank’s new chief executive, unveiled a threeyear turnaround plan in which the lender will cut around 9,000 jobs, shift its focus from investment banking towards managing the wealth of its rich clients and take a Sfr1.5bn investment from Saudi Arabia’s biggest bank.
The bank endured twin hits in 2021 following the collapse of supply chain finance group Greensill Capital and family office Archegos.