Zurich, Switzerland – Credit Suisse shares plunged by more than 14 percent on Monday to hit a new historic low, as the markets worried about European banks following the collapse of US lender SVB.
Shares in Switzerland’s second biggest bank fell rapidly on the Swiss stock exchange, dropping 14.30 percent to 2.139 Swiss francs.
Other European banks took a beating, with Germany’s Commerzbank down 12 percent, Spain’s Santander shedding 7.4 percent and the Netherlands’ ING falling 8.3 percent.
Credit Suisse has lost 81 percent of its value since it was rocked by the bankruptcy of the British financial firm Greensill in March 2021 — the first in a series of scandals that have weakened the Zurich-based bank.
Those shocks forced Credit Suisse to launch a major restructuring effort, but the bank has continued to see its value drop on the stock market.
Under the weight of those restructuring costs, the bank reported in early Feb a net loss of 7.3 billion Swiss francs ($7.76 billion) for the 2022 financial year.
That came against a backdrop of massive withdrawals of funds by its clients, including in the wealth management sector — one of the activities on which the bank intends to refocus.