The emirate of Qatar's stake in the Swiss bank is revealed – as well as its staunch support in a cash call to shore up capital wiped out by Archegos losses.
The Qatar Investment Authority holds just over six percent in Credit Suisse, the Swiss stock exchange reported in a disclosure on Friday. This clarifies a newswire report on Thursday that the emirate, long a huge backer of the Zurich-based bank, had trimmed its stake.
The discrepancy between U.S. disclosure, Swiss, and the bank's own is due to how Qatar's support of $1.9 billion cash call in April is reported. SIX, the Swiss stock exchange operator, said Doha owns 4.8 percent in shares and rights to buy another 0.5 percent via the recent cap hike, structured as convertible notes.
Nursing Greensill Losses
The reordering triggered a somewhat misleading report to the U.S. regulator that Qatar was in the process of reducing its stake below 5 percent, a key threshold. Qatar itself has rarely made any statements on its shareholders or its intentions.
The emirate's representative on the Swiss bank's board, Jassim Bin Hamad J.J. Al Thani, left four years ago. The situation around Qatar's long-time support of Credit Suisse is complicated by a prominent member of the emirate's ruling family reportedly sitting on Greensill fund losses.
