Credit Suisse bosses ‘enriched themselves with massive bonuses’

Protestors make their point outside the Credit Suisse AGM in Zurich in April. © Keystone / Michael Buholzer

A handful of Credit Suisse executives were handed hundreds of millions of francs in opaque profit-sharing deals in the years leading up to the bank’s collapse, reports the SonntagsZeitung newspaper.

The revelations come after the Swiss government ordered bonuses to be capped or scrapped for top managers while shareholders voted against executive pay demands.

+ Where did it all go wrong for Credit Suisse?

Parliament is also debating reforms that would curb excessive bonuses for banks that are deemed too big to fail.

This comes after Credit Suisse was forced into an emergency takeover by UBS to avoid collapsing under the weight of a bank run.

The SonntagsZeitung has named seven former Credit Suisse executives who were able to enrich themselves while working for the investment banking or asset management units.

In 2019 alone, some CHF100 million was paid out to a few top managers, the newspaper says. In other years, various top earners were awarded up to CHF30 million in deals that were kept secret from shareholders.

Some of the bonuses were the result of profit-sharing schemes that were allegedly approved by former Credit Suisse CEO Brady Dougan.

Dougan infamously pocketed a CHF71 million bonus shortly after the financial crisis had sent shares plummeting.

Frequently citing unnamed sources, the newspaper runs through a list of opaque bonus deals that netted eye-watering sums of money.

However, managers later invariably left the bank as huge deals went sour, causing the bank catastrophic reputational damage.