Shares of Credit Suisse fell 24% today on the Zurich Stock Exchange, a crash that sent other European banks down after they lost 30%, on a black day for Switzerland’s second-biggest bank, marked by the refusal of the Saudi Arabian National Bank, its the main shareholder, to provide him with additional financial assistance.
Shares of the Zurich bank, one of the 20 largest in Europe and one of the 50 largest in the world, were worth about 1.7 Swiss francs (1.74 euros) by the end of the day, after hitting a record low of 1.5 francs during the session (€1.54) when they were never below 2 francs per ballot.
The crash, which comes after a few very negative days for the bank, hit by the stock market crisis caused by the collapse of the US Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), coincided with the statements of the president of the Saudi state bank, Ammar al-Khudayri, announcing that he would not be making large injections of capital to your organization.
“We can’t because we’ll exceed 10% (of shareholders), it’s a matter of regulation,” he said in statements to Bloomberg.
The Saudi bank acquired the 10% stake last year as part of a capital increase launched by Credit Suisse, an investment in which the Middle East company invested 1,500 million Swiss francs (1,530 million euros).
In 2022, the Zurich-based bank suffered a loss of 7,293 million Swiss francs (about 7,400 million euros), 4.5 times more than in 2021.
Due to its exposure to risky firms with financial problems, such as Archegos or Greensill, Credit Suisse also suffered a liquidity drain of 123,200 million Swiss francs (126,000 million euros) last year.
A black trading day for Credit Suisse would have forced the organization to turn to the Swiss National Bank (central) for a public statement of support for the firm’s financial health after its titles fell 30% in the morning, according to the British business newspaper Financial Times.
Concerns about the contagion caused by the Swiss bank situation have prompted the European Central Bank (ECB), which is holding a monetary policy meeting tomorrow, to contact the central banks of eurozone countries to brief them on their level of financial risk. Credit Suisse, according to the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal.
EFE
Source: Aristegui Noticias
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
