Credit Suisse Says Q1 Profitability Improved; Ex-CEO Thiam' Pay Down 15%

(RTTNews) - Credit Suisse Group said that profitability in the first quarter of 2020 has so far continued the strong year-on-year improvement trend, despite the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant volatile market environment.

Credit Suisse said in its 2019 annual report that the spread of COVID-19 will significantly impact the global economy. The coronavirus outbreak will likely to affect the company's financial performance, including credit loss estimates, trading revenues, net interest income and potential goodwill assessments.

Credit Suisse former Chief Executive officer Tidjane Thiam's total compensation for 2019 was 10.7 million Swiss francs, down 15% for the prior year. This decrease was mainly hurt by a lower achievement on the short-term incentive 2019 financial performance targets, his non-financial assessment score of 50% and the lower fair value of the 2019 long-term incentive portunity.

In February 2020, Tidjane Thiam resigned as Chief Executive officer of Credit Suisse in the wake of a spying scandal at the Swiss bank.

In December 2019, Credit Suisse confirmed that a second top employee was placed under surveillance earlier last year.

Peter Goerke, who was a member of the Executive Board at the time, was placed under observation by a third-party firm on behalf of the bank for a period of several days in February 2019.

An investigation by the bank enlisted Swiss law firm then concluded that Pierre-Olivier Bouée, a former member of the Executive Board, issued the mandate to have Peter Goerke put under observation. As was the case with former wealth management head Iqbal Khan, the observation was carried out via an intermediary. Khan had subsequently moved on to UBS.

The bank had terminated the employment agreement with Pierre-Olivier Bouée.

The Swiss law firm's investigation did not find any indication that the Group CEO Tidjane Thiam, other members of the Executive Board, or members of the Board of Directors had any knowledge of the observation of Peter Goerke until media reported on it.