Following an adjustment of its 2014 results to mirror the new corporate structure, it has become apparent how much Credit Suisse still relies on the investment bank.
The adjustment of the results for 2014 and further back didn't affect the figures much, but they show for the first time, how strong the units of Switzerland's No. 2 bank are. Two units stick out: the Swiss bank and the investment bank, called Global Markets.
The Swiss-based business, which will be called Swiss Universal Bank in future, produced a pretax profit of about 2 billion francs, which was just short of a third of the total.
Powerful Investment Bank
The international Wealth Management unit by comparison contributed 795 million francs to the company's pretax in 2014, and Asia about 900 million.
The new Global Markets division, which is a synonym for trading with stocks and fixed-income products, had an even higher pretax than the Swiss unit, adding 2.7 billion francs to the total.
Investment Banking & Capital Markets, which includes the credit and adviser business, had pretax of 508 million. The «new» Credit Suisse of CEO Tidjane Thiam will retain a very strong investment bank – having contributed some 3.2 billion francs to pretax in 2014. With Asia included, pretax was 3.8 billion.
Getting Stronger Still
The three other units had a pretax of 3.1 billion together, showing the weight of investment banking at CS. Investment banking contributed 57 percent of pretax in 2014, while the Swiss business and Wealth Management added 43 percent.
Following the planned spin-off of the Swiss business in 2017, investment banking will have an even bigger importance within the remaining international bank.
