Drastic step at big bank
Bonuses for firing employees at Credit Suisse?
02/10/2023 10:54 am
For the major Swiss bank Credit Suisse, the crisis year 2022 ends with another loss of billions. The financial institution is facing a difficult period of restructuring – and is now apparently resorting to a drastic measure: bosses who fire their employees are supposed to collect high bonuses.
According to the newspaper “Financial Times”, the crisis-ridden Swiss bank Credit Suisse wants to pay its managers a mega bonus totaling the equivalent of 354 million euros if they lay off 9,000 employees. According to the newspaper, the top one percent of the workforce – that’s around 500 managers – should get the extra payout. This is intended to keep morale high during a difficult period of restructuring. In other words, Credit Suisse pays a bonus of almost EUR 40,000 for every employee who is laid off.
The board of directors is preparing to submit a special “transformation bonus” to the vote at the bank’s annual general meeting on April 4, it said. In addition, the board of directors also contacted the shareholders in the run-up to the meeting to ask them whether they would support the bonus.
Credit Suisse declined to comment on the report to the Financial Times. A request from ntv.de has so far remained unanswered.
After one of the weakest financial years in its 167-year history, the major bank dampened expectations of a quick turnaround just yesterday. Credit Suisse will also make a “significant pre-tax loss” in 2023, the Swiss group warned. The massive outflow of customer funds at the end of the previous year and the exit from large parts of investment banking are likely to leave deep scars. “We should then be profitable in 2024,” predicted CEO Ulrich Körner. Even for 2025, the institute is only aiming for a return on equity that analysts classify as “unambitious”.
Costs for the restructuring and the collapse of earnings in investment banking brought Credit Suisse the highest deficit since the financial crisis. The bottom line was a loss of 7.3 billion francs after a minus of 1.7 billion francs in the previous year. Credit Suisse last reported a higher deficit in 2008 at the height of the financial crisis.