Credit Suisse informed CNBC on Wednesday that U.S. authorities will “absolutely not” discover any proof of misbehavior as it deals with a probe of its compliance with sanctions on Russian oligarchs.
The Swiss bank is under examination by the House Oversight Committee over accusations that it asked financiers to “destroy and permanently erase” files associated with a portfolio of loans backed by luxury yachts and personal jets possibly owned by approved Russian oligarchs.
Credit Suisse apparently sent out the demand to financiers following a report very first emerged by the Financial Times that it had actually unloaded the threats associating with $2 billion of loans to a group of hedge funds.
CEO Thomas Gottstein stated Wednesday that the letter gotten by financiers had “nothing to do” with sanctions or loans coming from members of President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.
“[It] has absolutely nothing to do with damaging products associated with sanctions,” Gottstein informed CNBC’s Geoff Cutmore.
“This was a one-off transaction, which was very much a continuation of three other securitized transactions we did before,” he stated.
“It was part of our dealing with private placement investors, institutional investors, and there were absolutely no materials in there that were relevant from a sanctions perspective.”
Asked whether the bank had any case to respond to, Gottstein stated, “absolutely not.”
According to the feet, the demand letters were sent out throughout a week in which the U.S., U.K. and EU released a fresh wave of sanctions versus Russia over its unprovoked intrusion of Ukraine.
Russian company
Gottstein likewise protected the bank’s position on Russian company, stating that like other significant Wall Street and European banks it was downsizing its operations there in the wake of the war.
“As everybody else, we are winding down our Russia business,” he stated, repeating a statement made last month.
An indication above the entryway to the Credit Suisse Group AG head offices in Zurich, Switzerland, on Monday,Nov 1, 2021.
Thi My Lien Nguyen|Bloomberg|Getty Images
Going forward, Gottstein stated the bank would not be handling “any new business, any new clients” from Russia, while likewise continuing to unwind its direct exposure to existing Russian customers.
“Our total exposure to Russian clients — that includes Russian clients all over the world, not only the Russian clients in Russia — and we have been reducing this by 56% in terms of our credit exposure,” he stated.
The remarks follow the release of Credit Suisse’s first-quarter monetary outcomes Wednesday, in which it reported a bottom line of 273 million Swiss francs ($2835 million).
Russia- associated losses represented 206 million francs of the losses, while the bank likewise took a hit of 155 million francs associated to the Archegos scandal.
Gottstein has actually formerly specified that about 4% of the possessions the bank handles in its core wealth management company come from Russian customers.
“We have roughly 4% of our assets under management in wealth management with Russian clients, be they Russian-domiciled or Russian nationals who live in the West,” Gottstein stated, according toReuters That figure has actually not altered substantially considering that, the bank stated in an upgrade Wednesday.
