Credit Suisse no longer exists as legal entity in Switzerland

Credit Suisse Switzerland no longer exists Keystone / Jean-Christophe Bott

Switzerland's largest bank UBS has taken a decisive step forward in the integration of Credit Suisse. The merger of the local legal entities - UBS Switzerland and CS Switzerland - has been completed.

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Following approval by the authorities, the merger of the national companies was officially completed on Monday, according to a statement from the banking group. Credit Suisse Switzerland has thus also been deleted from the Commercial Register of the Canton of Zurich and no longer exists as a separate legal entity. All rights and obligations of Credit Suisse Switzerland have thus been transferred to UBS Switzerland.

According to UBS, the merger will now enable the gradual migration of client transactions in the Swiss business to the UBS systems. This is expected to take place mostly in 2025.

Sooner or later, the “Credit Suisse” brand will disappear for good in this country too. Abroad, the removal of CS signs at company locations began last year.

Helfenstein goes

In addition, André Helfenstein, CEO of Credit Suisse Switzerland, has announced his departure following the merger. “Since UBS took over Credit Suisse, André has made a substantial contribution to stabilising Credit Suisse’s business and has worked tirelessly for our clients and our employees,” UBS Switzerland CEO Sabine Keller-Busse was quoted as saying in the statement.

At the end of May, UBS had already completed the merger of its parent companies UBS AG and Credit Suisse AG. This meant that Credit Suisse AG disappeared from the commercial register around a month ago. At the beginning of June, the transition to a single intermediate holding company was also completed in the United States.

UBS announced the takeover of Credit Suisse on March 19, 2023 and formally completed it on June 12, 2023. That was also the last day that CS shares were traded on the Swiss stock exchange.

Further job cuts planned

With the official merger, the restructuring in Switzerland can now really get started. In a recent interview, UBS Switzerland boss Keller-Busse said that the integrated bank would only have 194 branches. Today, Credit Suisse has 95 branches in Switzerland, while UBS previously had 190.

UBS plans to reduce annual costs globally by a total of around $13 billion by the end of 2026 compared to 2022. There will be 3,000 layoffs in Switzerland. Some 1,000 jobs will be lost due to the integration of CS Switzerland into the banking group, and a further 2,000 will affect other business areas located here.

UBS has not yet given a figure for how large the job cuts will be across the group by 2026. According to media speculation, the major bank is planning to have a workforce of 85,000 at the end of the integration. As of the end of March 2024, there were just under 112,000 full-time positions, around 30% of which were in Switzerland.

Before the takeover at the end of 2022, the two banks at the time had a combined total of around 123,000 employees.

Translated from German by DeepL/mga

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