The hits keep coming for investment banking giant Credit Suisse.
The firm announced Tuesday that it expects to take a CHF 4.4 billion (USD $4.7 billion) writedown following losses related to family office Archegos Capital Management’s failure to meet its margin requirements.
Executives are stepping down, and the firm has launched two investigations: one into Archegos, and another into Credit Suisse’s purchase of Greensill Capital’s supply chain debt. Thomas Gottstein, chief executive officer of the firm, called the losses tied to Archegos “unacceptable.”
In 2020, the firm faced its fair share of challenges too. In November, Credit Suisse told investors that it was taking a $450 million impairment on its stake in hedge fund York Capital Management, which announced it was winding down some of its businesses after a strategic review. And two of its clients Luckin Coffee and Wirecard AG spent much of the year embroiled in scandal.
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Archegos Capital, the heavily leveraged family office of former Tiger Cub Bill Hwang, reportedly triggered huge losses in a handful of stocks, including ViacomCBS and Discovery, that began last Friday. Now the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler, and other global regulators are considering what to do to prevent a similar implosion.
The stock meltdown impacted six banks who lent money on margin to Hwang’s family office, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, and Nomura. The chaos apparently started when Hwang couldn’t make his margin calls. The banks started selling shares of the companies on Friday, rocking the markets and sending investors into a tail spin to figure out what was happening.
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