UBS

Swiss Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter said Switzerland's economy would probably have collapsed had Credit Suisse gone bankrupt, in an interview published yesterday.

Keller-Sutter told Le Temps newspaper that the government had acted in the country's best interests in swiftly arranging the takeover of Switzerland's second-biggest bank by its larger domestic rival UBS.

The Swiss attorney general's office says it has opened a probe into the events surrounding embattled bank Credit Suisse, which is to be taken over by rival UBS.

The merger between banks Credit Suisse and UBS could see up to 36,000 jobs being cut across the world, the SonntagsZeitung weekly reported yesterday.

The takeover by UBS of Credit Suisse was hastily arranged by the Swiss government on March 19 to prevent a global financial meltdown, following fears of contagion from the collapse of banks in the United States.

The Geneva watch fair opened on March 27 buoyed by booming growth in the watchmaking industry, but insiders warily eyed the banking sector turmoil, evoking painful memories of the 2008 financial crisis.

The chairman of Saudi National Bank, the main shareholder of troubled lender Credit Suisse which was bought out this month, has resigned, a statement said yesterday.

The Saudi bank's board of directors "accepted the resignation" of Ammar AlKhudairy "due to personal reasons," said the statement published on the Saudi stock exchange.

UBS Group AG will likely shrink Credit Suisse Group's $10 billion shipping portfolio that it inherited as part of its emergency takeover on Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

UBS could also try to sell the portfolio, but doing so could prompt owners to move their accounts elsewhere, the WSJ reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

UBS also took up to $5.4 billion (about 5.05 billion euros) in losses, based on a plan by Swiss authorities to avoid further turmoil in the banking market.
The agreement also includes 108 billion dollars of aid (about 101 billion euros) for the liquidity of UBS and Credit Suisse, which will be paid by the Swiss Central Bank.

Swiss Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter said the government's decision to provide liquidity support to UBS Group AG and Credit Suisse was made with the aim of maintaining financial stability and not simply a desire to save a troubled institution.

Banking giant UBS is buying troubled rival Credit Suisse for almost $3.25 billion, in a deal orchestrated by regulators to stave off further market-shaking turmoil in the global banking system.

Switzerland's biggest bank UBS is in talks to buy the country's second-largest bank, Credit Suisse, which has found itself in trouble, the Financial Times (FT) reported, citing several unnamed sources.