Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters has expressed surprise at the terms of the sale of Credit Suisse to UBS, which prioritised shareholders over bondholders. Winters was speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum, organised by Bloomberg. Under the rescue deal, UBS agreed to buy Credit Suisse for 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.4 billion) in stock and to assume up to 5 billion francs in losses. This resulted in $18 billion in Credit Suisse’s Additional Tier 1 (AT1) debt being rendered worthless.
Winters said the banking crisis was over but that a transformation of banks was still needed. Qatar Investment Authority CEO Mansoor Ebrahim al-Mahmoud said he thought UBS had got a “good deal” with the Credit Suisse takeover. UBS has flagged tens of billions of dollars of potential costs and benefits from its takeover of Credit Suisse, which will create a wealth manager with more than $5 trillion in invested assets and over 120,000 employees globally.