Credit Suisse is in free-fall. Down 83% in fixed income sales and trading. Down 95% in equities sales and trading. Down by half in M&A. On trial for cocaine dealing.

A bank losing all its income and going down in a criminal probe into a coke dealer. It'd be a good SNL skit if there weren't so many lives on the line.

It's amazing a bonus pool exists at all.

They're talking in percentage terms because you'd be shocked if they were talking cash.

Traders get million pound bonuses. or more. Goodness knows what a bonus is worth, but I'd be extremely happy with 50% of whatever it is.

It might seem odd to be paying bonuses at all, but to be fair, mega bonuses are part of the culture of share trading and if you have no bonuses then you have no traders, they'll go elsewhere.

“ It has, however, increased salaries.”

These guys can’t lose. They either win or win big time even while running their company into the ground. Time for some government bailouts so they can go on a luxury retreat like AIG execs did in 2008.

I did some consulting work for them in the Canary Wharf office back in maybe 2016?-ish. Even then it was clear the firm was in free fall- I've never seen anything like it and that's all I'll say.

Relatedly:

"Crooks, kleptocrats and crises: a timeline of Credit Suisse scandals"

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/feb/21/tax-timeline-cr...

So, is Credit Suisse considered "too big to fail?" If no, are there any ramifications if it were to collapse? It seems like the writing has been on the wall for a while now, so I would hope preparations have been made and it would not be catastrophic, but it's honestly a little crazy to see a ~170 year old institution getting this close to shuttering.

CS has been the worst IB in the industry for years. Really embarrassing for the Swiss.

many commenters say CS is too big to fail. I wonder if the Swiss government would do a referendum on this.

This article needs layoffs, is there a TLDR?

In theory, after the 2008 bailout, the Swiss people were promised that this would be the last time, and next time the bank(s) in question would be wound down.

I'm not super optimistic this actually is going to happen. On the other hand, in contrast to 2008, UBS, the other large bank, is not in crisis right now, so the argument that it's an enterprise rather than a sector problem is much stronger.

In theory, there exist firm plans to do an orderly resolution that can result in a market exit should the bank not be able to survive: https://www.finma.ch/en/enforcement/recovery-and-resolution/...

In practice, it'll be interesting to see.

There will certainly be ramifications. Whether CS is "too big to fail" will determine the extent of those ramifications. TBTF generally means that a bank's failure is liable to bring down the entire economy. But any large bank, even if not strictly speaking TBTF, will cause plenty of pain if it fails, both for those who save/invest with it and those who rely on it for financing.

It’s a source of pride for the Swiss, and hence Swiss government won’t let it fail no matter how poorly it’s managed.

I can't imagine them being bailed out because they really aren't too big to fail.

A bank like Citi in 2008 really was too big to fail without imploding the entire system given the circumstance.