ZURICH – Credit Suisse’s Private Banking Switzerland will be part of its Swiss business from April 1 rather than of the newly created wealth management unit, the bank said in an internal memo on Monday, making first changes to a new structure presented in November.
“We have carefully weighed the pros and cons of different models and have come to the conclusion that serving our private banking clients in the affluent and high-net-worth segments in the Swiss Bank is the best strategy to leverage our strengths and to achieve our strategic goals,” Andre Helfenstein, CEO of Credit Suisse’s Swiss Bank, the group’s banking business in Switzerland.
“As a result, the Private Banking Switzerland Division will become part of the Swiss Bank,” he said in the memo seen by Reuters and confirmed by Credit Suisse.
The information was first revealed by Finews.
Serge Fehr, head of Private Banking Switzerland, will report directly to Helfenstein, the memo said.
The bank’s former Chairman Antonio Horta-Osorio, who has since stepped down over breaches to quarantine rules, presented the new strategy last year in an effort to curb a freewheeling culture that has cost the bank billions in a string of scandals.
(Reporting by Oliver Hirt, writing by Silke Koltrowitz. Editing by Jane Merriman)
