Credit Suisse planning further hires in wealth, investment bank tie-up

By Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi

ZURICH (Reuters) – Credit Suisse is planning to make further hires under former Bank of America investment banking chief Christian Meissner as it kickstarts its new investment banking advisory unit for wealthy clients, Chief Financial Officer David Mathers told Reuters on Thursday.

“We’ve hired Christian Meissner to lead this new unit that will step up the offer we have for large ultra-high net worth clients in the investment banking space. He’s really driving the provision of investment banking services to some of our major wealth management customers,” Mathers told Reuters in an interview following the bank’s third-quarter earnings.

Credit Suisse is looking to a new investment bank advisory group to increase its business with wealthy entrepreneurs on corporate deals and bond and equity issuance to help its stand-alone wealth division grow profits by 10% annually from next year.

“There will be more hires,” Mathers said, adding these might be expected to fall in the magnitude of several tens. “We will hire to staff it up, and I think you can expect us to hire more relationship managers as we continue to grow our wealth management business.”

The bank is seeking to grow other teams in its international wealth management division, which executives contend must look to higher lending and more transaction-based activity after struggling with low interest rates and negative currency pressures in the third quarter, following record asset-gathering.

“We’ve collected 11 billion (Swiss francs) in net new assets this quarter, so we obviously want that to continue into 2021,” Mathers said.

It will also seek to make some hires in the investment bank, he said.

(Reporting by Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi; editing by Silke Koltrowitz)