Credit Suisse on course for fund shortfall of £7billion

TROUBLED bank Credit Suisse faces a funding shortfall of as much as £7billion, according to a report by Goldman Sachs.

The Swiss lender will face a widening gap between now and 2024, the Wall Street giant’s analysts said.

Financial experts are sizing up the bank’s funding requirements as they wait for the announcement of a restructuring plan on October 27.

Investors are pressing Credit Suisse to sell assets and reduce its reliance on risky investment banking, which has long been a core part of the 166-year-old group. The bank’s share price has halved this year.

The Mail on Sunday reported last month that chief executive Ulrich Koerner sent a memo to staff reassuring them of Credit Suisse’s stability after the stock price slide worsened in September. He said the bank had a ‘strong capital base and liquidity position’ and he planned ‘a more focused, agile group’.

But he admitted the bank was at a ‘critical moment’.

Some analysts have called for the bank to reveal its turnaround plan sooner. Broker Keefe, Bruyette & Woods said asset sales would help raise cash but the group also needed a ‘decisive’ plan to raise cash from shareholders, adding that failure to do so would mean this would ‘not be the last restructuring the bank needs’.

Credit Suisse wants to draw a line under a string of affairs. It was embroiled in the collapses of lender Greensill Capital and US hedge fund Archegos Capital, and admitted last year it had defrauded investors in the historical Mozambique ‘tuna bonds’ loan scandal.