Credit Suisse is keeping shareholders guessing about its plans to top up equity. The management may be waiting until after the annual general meeting, a media report suggests.
Credit Suisse (CS) has yet to decide whether it will take the Swiss business public, according to a report in Swiss Sunday newspaper «Sonntagszeitung» (in German, behind paywall), which referred to people close to CS Chairman Urs Rohner. Observers have been left guessing which option Switzerland’s second-biggest bank prefers to raise billions of Swiss francs it needs.
The decision will be made in the coming months, the report states. CS didn’t comment on the report. Analysts so far assumed the bank would decide about the planned partial IPO for its Swiss unit by the end of April.
IPO: One of the Options
CEO Tidjane Thiam in March had said that shareholders would be told as soon as possible. CS had been preparing for the transaction for about one-and-a-half years, when Thiam put it up for question again. In an interview, he said the bank needed 2 to 4 billion francs, but also said that the IPO was but one of the options, which included another capital increase following the one of 2015.
The delay to reach a decision had nothing to do with perceived problems to convince the markets about one or the other option, the newspaper said. Rather, the board was mulling the best time for an IPO or capital increase to get the highest possible price.
