The Swiss bank could take over all or part of the ailing Credit Suisse.
(Photo: Bloomberg)
Zurich The major Swiss bank UBS is apparently to take over all or part of its crisis-ridden competitor Credit Suisse. The “Financial Times” reported on Friday evening, citing several people familiar with the talks. The Swiss financial regulator has informed its colleagues in the US and UK that this is the preferred solution to the Credit Suisse crisis, the newspaper reports.
Credit Suisse and UBS declined to comment to the Financial Times. The stock exchange reacted promptly to the news: Credit Suisse shares listed in the USA suddenly rose in price by around nine percent.
Should UBS actually take over Credit Suisse, the Swiss supervisors would have prevailed against UBS’s resistance. When asked about takeover rumors, UBS boss Ralph Hamers always emphasized that he wanted to focus on growing his own wealth management. In Switzerland, too, the step was considered politically unpopular with a view to possible job losses.
But the Credit Suisse crisis had escalated over the course of the week to such an extent that those responsible apparently felt compelled to come up with a major solution. The aim of the merger is to ensure the stability of the Swiss financial center, it said in the “FT” report.
On Wednesday, the thoughtless and possibly misleading statement by a major Saudi shareholder plunged Credit Suisse into chaos. The stock fell at times by more than 30 percent. A liquidity injection from the Swiss National Bank (SNB) of 50 billion francs (50.7 billion euros) gave the bank only a short breath. The fact that the supervisors now want to push through a takeover by UBS suggests that the outflow of customer money over the past week had become too large.
More: You can read all developments regarding the banking crisis in the news blog.