Switzerland

UBS faces big risks as it prepares to absorb its longtime archrival, Credit Suisse, the bank’s chairman warned shareholders at its annual meeting on Wednesday, the New York Times reported.

Switzerland’s banking regulator said it considered putting Credit Suisse Group AG into bankruptcy before deciding on the takeover by UBS Group AG, as the risk of contagion was too great, Bloomberg reported. Finma scoped out various rescue options before the day the bank was sold in the government-backed deal. The lender had faced an “unprecedented” bank run, Finma President Marlene Amstad said at a press conference on Wednesday in the Swiss capital Bern.

Credit Suisse shareholders on Tuesday upbraided the Swiss bank’s leaders for years of mismanagement, scandal and obfuscation that sent its stock price into the gutter, while executives apologized and insisted that the only way forward for the once-venerable lender was a government-engineered takeover by rival UBS, the Associated Press reported.

Sight deposits held by the Swiss National Bank declined last week, data showed on Monday, suggesting that Credit Suisse and UBS may have cut back on use of emergency funds that had been offered to them to facilitate their planned merger, Reuters reported. Total sight deposits — meaning commercial bank cash held by the central bank overnight — fell to 563.566 billion Swiss francs ($614.71 billion) from 567.003 billion francs in the previous week, the SNB data showed.

A poll of Swiss economists found that nearly half think the takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS was not the best solution, warning that the saga has dented Switzerland’s reputation as a banking centre, Reuters reported. Switzerland's KOF economic research institute found that 48% of the 167 university economists it questioned would have preferred a state takeover and possible later sale of Credit Suisse.