Credit Suisse chief executive resigns after turbulent two years

theguardian.com:

The chief executive of Credit Suisse has resigned after a tumultuous two-year tenure during which the Swiss lender was beset by a string of scandals and financial losses.

The bank confirmed on Wednesday that Thomas Gottstein was stepping down and would be replaced by the head of its asset management division, Ulrich Körner, in an a move intended to solidify the bank’s strategic shift away from investment banking.

It marks the latest high-level departure at the bank, which also lost its chairman – the former Lloyds Banking Group boss António Horta-Osório in January after he twice broke Covid-19 regulations.

Gottstein’s resignation, rumours of which started to emerge on Tuesday evening, was announced alongside the bank’s second-quarter earnings, which showed the bank suffered a 1.6bn Swiss franc loss (£1.3bn) in the three months to June, compared with a 253m Swiss franc profit a year earlier.

The exiting boss, who is leaving after a total of 23 years at Credit Suisse, said: “Despite the challenges of the past two years, I am immensely proud of our achievements since joining the executive board seven years ago and more recently in strengthening the bank, recruiting a top-calibre executive board, reducing risk and fundamentally improving our risk culture.

“In recent weeks, for personal and health-related considerations, and after discussions with [chairman Axel Lehmann] and my family, I concluded that now would be the right time to step aside and clear the way for new leadership to fully embrace the important initiatives announced this morning, which I wholeheartedly support.”

The top-level turnover follows an unprecedented year of controversies in which the bank became embroiled in the collapse of the controversial lender