Credit Suisse Profit Meets Our Expectations

Write down at CS investment banking division shrinks; all three units deliver profit.

Erin Davis | 25-07-08 | E-mail Article

Credit Suisse (link will open in a new window) reported a profit of CHF 1.215 billion for the second quarter, in line with our expectations, and we're standing by our fair value estimate. We were pleased to see that Credit Suisse made a profit in each of its three divisions, including investment banking, which was the main driver behind the Swiss bank's CHF 2.1 billion loss in the first quarter. We were especially happy that the investment bank took net write-downs of only CHF 22 million, largely on leveraged loans, which is immaterial compared with the CHF 5.3 billion of write-downs it took in the first quarter.

While the results at the investment bank were not bad, the news was not all good--revenue fell 50% from the strong year-ago quarter because of reduced origination activity and lower trading revenue, and profits were only CHF 0.3 billion, compared with CHF 2.5 billion in the year-ago quarter. As we expected, Credit Suisse's private banking business is benefiting from relatively strong performance during the market dislocation and from the reputational damage some of its peers have suffered. Net new money flowing into private banking was a record CHF 17.4 billion, including CHF 15.4 billion into wealth management. We think this bodes well for the division's future earning power and goes a long way toward alleviating our concerns about the 12% drop in profits the division experienced in the current quarter, compared with the year-ago quarter. This modest decline was largely due to the 13% reduction in assets under management caused by drops in exchange rates and asset prices, and by Credit Suisse's aggressive efforts to expand its network of private bankers. Overall, we're pleased with Credit Suisse's results and think the bank is likely to continue to benefit from its strong position relative to many of its rivals.

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