Scandal-stricken Credit Suisse pushes through board shake up
Beleaguered lender Credit Suisse attempted to draw a line under a series of scandals today as it pushed through a board shake up, including the departure of vice chair Severin Schwan.
The Zurich-based bank, which employs around 5000 people in London, said Schwan would not stand for re-election to the position at the firm’s annual general meeting on April 29th.
Bosses also confirmed that two of the 13 members of the Credit Suisse board, Kai S. Nargolwala and Juan Colombas, will not be standing for re-election.
Board veteran Christian Gellerstad has been nominated to takeover the vice chair role, having joined the board in 2014 and serving as vice chair and lead independent director since 2017.
The shake up comes as the lender looks to calm investor anger following a series of high profile of scandals that have rattled investors.
Last year the firm was shaken by the collapse of U.S. family office Archegos Capital Management, which defaulted on several margin calls from investment banks including Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
Credit Suisse was then caught up in the collapse of British Financier Greensill Capital months later, leading it to close around $10bn of supply chain finance funds which had bought notes issued by Greensill.
The scandals sparked an investor exodus last year with the bank’s share price plunging more than 22 per cent and a further 14.5 per cent this year.
Veteran banker Antonio Horta-Osorio was called in to the chairman role to steady the ship following the crises, but he then abruptly left the firm in January following an internal probe into his conduct which uncovered breaches of Covid rules.