Credit Suisse Plunges To 25 Year Lows After Posting Enormous $5.8 Billion Q4 Loss

Seven days ago, Deutsche Bank turned in what various sellside desks described as “horrible”, “grim” results for both Q4 and 2015 as a whole.

The bank posted its first annual net loss since the financial crisis, reporting red ink that totaled more than $7 billion as investment banking revenue fell plunged by some 30%.

On Thursday, we learn that Credit Suisse (CS) lost nearly $6 billion in the fourth quarter. The 2015 net loss came to nearly $3 billion. 

Shares in the Swiss bank plunged 13% to their lowest levels since 1991 as Tidjane Thiam’s “turnaround” hit a rather large bump in the road.

The shares are down 32% this year alone.

The $5.8 billion quarterly loss is the largest since the crisis and it would certainly appear that the focus on wealth management (as opposed to investment banking) comes at a rather inopportune time, given the emphasis placed on AsiaPac where Thiam plans to double pretax income in just two years. 

“The latest report is the first to reflect Credit Suisse’s new structure under Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam, who took over in July and announced his strategic plans for the bank in October,” WSJ writes. “Those plans include bolstering wealth management, particularly in regions such as Asia, while reducing the resources directed to its investment bank.”

Some of the loss was attributable to a CHF3.8 billion impairment charge tied to the costly 2000 acquisition of investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette for $11.5 billion which the Journal reminds us was “a price widely viewed at the time as expensive.

But even as the Street expected a rather disappointing performance, “these numbers are terrible,” to quote Dieter Hein, an analyst at AlphaValue based near Frankfurt who spoke to Bloomberg. “In the mid- to long-term, it’s right to focus on growth in Asia, but what bad timing given the current environment.”