Credit Suisse (CS) Group said today it had slumped to a heavy loss in the third quarter, dragged down by losses at Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) and the declining value of some Swiss investments.
In a surprise statement brought forward from November to meet US disclosure requirements, CS said it fell to a net loss of 300 million Swiss francs ($187 million) from a profit of 1.29 billion francs in the previous three months.
Shares in the financial group, which includes Switzerland's second-largest bank as well as insurer Winterthur, reacted negatively and traded down 2.9 per cent at 52.90 francs by 10.50 GMT in a mostly higher sector, up 0.4 per cent.
At CSFB - which said it was cutting 2,000 jobs - there was an operating loss of about $120 million, as revenues shrank some 20 per cent because of tough markets made even worse by the financial shock following attacks in the United States.
But analysts said the bigger surprise was the scale of the writedown on investments in companies including Swiss Life, Switzerland's largest life insurer, and former blue-chip airline Swissair, which filed for court protection from creditors last week.
CS took about 200 million Swiss francs in provisions on unsecured exposure to Swissair, higher than the roughly 100 million it said it expected last week.