Credit Suisse's new boss flagged a strategic retool of its asset management arm over the next 12 months.
The Swiss bank is reviewing a five-year-old strategy of its money-management arm over the coming year, new CEO Thomas Gottstein told a business audience in Zurich on Wednesday. The unit lifted assets by two percent to 423.8 billion Swiss francs ($468 billion) in the second quarter.
«We're at a point where we’re making certain strategic deliberations how to get to the next level,» Gottstein said – indicating the bank would spend the next year doing so. Eric Varvel, a 30-year Credit Suisse veteran who runs asset management, has pursued a two-pronged strategy: boosting alternative investment like private debt, as well as passive strategies – and not paying much attention to the middle ground.
Complicated Ties
The «Varvel barbell» has delivered for Credit Suisse: the unit hiked its pre-tax profit in all but one year since embarking on it five years ago. The unit was integrated into its wider wealth management activities in a 2015 revamp led by ex-CEP Tidjane Thiam. Most recently, the unit hit the headlines for a complicated arrangement – since unwound – with Softbank and Wirecard.
At other big banks, asset management tends to be treated as an afterthought, that tends to become a pawn in merger talks. A prominent example is DWS, the funds business of Deutsche Bank, which has often been subject to divestment rumors – not least in the discussions allegedly held between Deutsche and UBS.
