The situation of the ailing major Swiss bank Credit Suisse (CS) has called the government into action. The seven members of the Federal Council met late in the afternoon for an extraordinary meeting in Bern, as reported by the “Neue Züricher Zeitung”. In the evening, other officials and experts were added. Government spokesman André Simonazzi declined to comment on what happened to reporters from the newspaper.
According to information from the “Financial Times”, the Swiss bank UBS is said to be interested in the partial or complete takeover of CS. This is also the wish of the Swiss supervisory authorities. The banks declined to comment. For the central bank, financial regulators and government, it is also about preventing a major banking crisis. The government could take emergency measures to speed up the process of a UBS-CS merger, according to the Financial Times. For example, it could shorten the six-week period actually required for shareholder consultation in the event of a takeover.
Already battered by scandals and mismanagement, CS went into a downward spiral earlier in the week following the collapse of the US bank Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). It received a loan commitment from the Swiss National Bank in the amount of CHF 50 billion (almost EUR 51 billion), but was only able to stop the downward trend in the share price temporarily.
