Credit Suisse Group AG has agreed to pay nearly $475 million to American and British authorities to resolve charges in connection with Mozambican bond offerings, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The charges centered on the Zurich-based bank's role in a $2 billion scandal involving government-guaranteed loans. The SEC said Credit Suisse fraudulently misled investors and violated U.S. bribery laws in a scheme involving two bond offerings and a syndicated loan that raised funds on behalf of state-owned entities in Mozambique.
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Switzerland
Switzerland proposed updated rules to ensure major banks hold enough liquidity to absorb shocks, but the draft changes will cost banks little or nothing in additional capital and liquidity holdings, government documents showed on Thursday, Reuters reported. The proposed revisions, which were sent into consultation on Thursday, aim to ensure that systemically important banks (SIBs) -- which include Credit Suisse and UBS -- remain resilient under various stress scenarios, including in some cases not adequately covered by current rules, the government said.
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The World Economic Forum will return to the Swiss ski resort of Davos in 2022, after the pandemic forced organizers to shift to Singapore and then cancel their meeting altogether this year, Bloomberg News reported. The in-person event is scheduled for Jan. 17-21 and designed “to address economic, environmental, political and social fault lines exacerbated by the pandemic,” the group said on Thursday. It is working with the Swiss government and health experts to establish the appropriate safety measures.
The Swiss government lowered its outlook for economic growth this year, citing headwinds such as the global logistics logjam and the slow resumption of intercontinental travel, Bloomberg News reported. Gross domestic product is forecast to expand 3.4% this year, down from a previous forecast of 3.8%, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs said on Thursday. The inflation rate is set to remain low, averaging just 0.5% in 2021.
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EY auditors in Switzerland failed to raise the alarm over multimillion-dollar jewelery purchases and approved huge payments to opaque offshore companies in the years before one of the country’s biggest ever corporate collapses, the Irish Times reported. Zeromax, a conglomerate based in the Swiss canton of Zug, had a business empire in Uzbekistan with interests ranging from textile processing to natural gas extraction that made it the Asian country’s largest employer, accounting for as much as 10 per cent of GDP.
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Swiss-Irish food group Aryzta has agreed a new €500 million revolving credit facility with three banks and has announced the disposal of its Brazilian businesses, the Irish Times reported. No financial details have been disclosed on the sale of the Brazilian subsidiaries to Grupo Bimbo SAB de CV. The transaction is expected to close shortly. Aryzta said the new credit facility, which is expected to be used by early October, is underwritten by Credit Suisse, Rabobank and UBS. It replaces the group’s current €800 million facility, which maters in September 2022.
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Credit Suisse Group AG knew Archegos Capital Management was a massive risk and didn’t take actions to fix it, according to an investigation the bank commissioned into the collapse of the family investment firm, the Wall Street Journal reported. The report released Thursday, prepared by a law firm for Credit Suisse, detailed how the bank for years granted Archegos special dispensation to avoid rules meant to protect the bank. It also ignored staff warnings before the family investment firm’s collapse.
A company owned by the billionaire Barclay family is trying to refinance a $200 million loan it received from Greensill Capital, a move that would potentially offer some relief to Credit Suisse Group AG funds that invested in debt arranged by the now-defunct specialty lender, Bloomberg News reported. Shop Direct Holdings Ltd. is in advanced talks to refinance the debt from Greensill, which was then sold on to funds run by Credit Suisse. The loan was unpaid as of June 29, according to a Credit Suisse presentation seen by Bloomberg.
Credit Suisse Group AG is considering centralising the management of its bankers to the world's wealthy, reversing a regional structure put in place six years ago, as the scandal-plagued Swiss bank looks for ways to tighten controls and improve operations, Reuters reported. The bank’s wealth management business is split, residing in three separate divisions -- the international business, Swiss business and a separate Asia-Pacific unit. Some executives felt that separation had not worked well and combining the businesses into one group would offer benefits, one of the sources said.
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In mid-March, shares in ViacomCBS Inc. and Discovery Inc. rocketed skyward. That was great news for Bill Hwang. His firm, Archegos Capital Management, had borrowed billions from Credit Suisse Group AG to make wagers on a handful of stocks, including the entertainment companies, according to a Wall Street Journal reported. As is standard practice, Archegos had handed over cash to Credit Suisse to secure its bets. With the stocks more than doubling since the start of the year, Archegos asked for some of that money back, and it was credited.
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