By Chad Bray
Credit Suisse said recently that it would further cut costs and had lowered profit targets for some of its operating divisions as Tidjane Thiam, its chief executive, tries to turn around the bank’s prospects.
Under Mr. Thiam’s leadership, Credit Suisse, which is based in Zurich, is reshaping itself by shrinking its investment bank and placing greater emphasis on its wealth management business, particularly in Asia and other emerging markets.
At an investor day conference, the bank said it would cut costs by a further 1 billion Swiss francs, or about $992 million. It also said it was aiming at an operating cost base of less than 17 billion francs for 2018, compared with its prior target of less than 18 billion francs.
The bank announced plans last year to cut thousands of jobs and reduce its costs by billions of dollars by the end of 2018. It moved to accelerate those cost-cutting efforts this year, saying it would eliminate 6,000 jobs.
“About a year ago, we presented our strategy to be a leading private bank and wealth manager with strong investment banking capabilities,” Mr. Thiam told investors on Wednesday. “One year into the implementation of this plan, we believe our strategy is the right one.”
Mr. Thiam joined the bank in 2015 after serving as the chief executive of the British insurer Prudential. The restructuring has led to some tensions among its bankers. In March, the bank said it would accelerate its cost-cutting and shrink its investment bank, with Mr. Thiam saying at the time that the size of the positions on the bank’s trading book “was a surprise for a number of people and was not a widely known fact.”
Credit Suisse’s share price rose nearly 7% in afternoon trading in Switzerland, but it remains about 36% lower than the levels it was trading at when Mr. Thiam first announced his plans in 2015.
© 2016 The New York Times
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