Credit Suisse Vice Chair Schwan steps down from board

Severin Schwan is also CEO of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche. Keystone / Georgios Kefalas

Credit Suisse announced on Monday that Vice-Chair Severin Schwan would not stand for re-election. This follows a reported rebellion by large shareholder groups at the Swiss bank.

“Severin Schwan, who joined the Board in 2014 and has acted as Vice-Chair and Lead Independent Director since 2017, has decided not to stand for re-election,” Credit Suisse said in a statementExternal link on Monday.

Schwan, who is also CEO of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche, had reportedly come under criticism that his two mandates don’t leave him enough time to fulfill his duties at the bank. 

Powerful shareholder groups last month told the Financial Times that they would seek to block Schwan’s re-election to the board of directors.

In the shake-up announced on Monday, Christian Gellerstad, who joined the board in 2019, will be appointed as Schwan’s successor. He will also take over as head of the compensation committee from Kai Nargolwala.

Schwan is departing alongside fellow directors Kai Nargolwala and Juan Colombas in a shake-up of directors. Colombas had only been on the board since last year.

“Severin and Kai, in particular, deserve the highest recognition for having helped steer the company through some challenging periods with commitment, perseverance and dedication,” said chairman Axel Lehmann in the statement.

The news came as the bank tries to shake off a series of risk-management scandals and a CHF1.6 billion Swiss franc ($1.75 billion) loss in 2021, down from a CHF2.7 billion profit in 2020, which has pummelled its stock price.

2021 was a difficult year for the bank, marked by the collapse of $10 billion in supply chain finance funds linked to British finance firm Greensill and a $5.5 billion trading loss from the implosion of investment fund Archegos.

Last autumn the bank agreed to pay $475 million to US and British authorities to settle an investigation into a kickback and bribery scheme in Mozambique.

At the start of this year, chair António Horta-Osório also resigned over Covid-19 quarantine breaches in England and Switzerland.

Last month Switzerland’s second-biggest bank was plunged into a dirty money scandal after media outlets reported the Swiss bank had managed accounts for human rights abusers, fraudsters and businessmen who had been placed under sanctions. Credit Suisse said it strongly rejected allegations of wrongdoing.

A trial also got underway last month in Switzerland in which Credit Suisse is accused of allowing drug traffickers to launder money.