Credit Suisse Q1 Profit Climbs; Warns On Impairments In Coming Quarters

(RTTNews) - Swiss banking major Credit Suisse Group AG (CS) reported Thursday that its first-quarter net income attributable to shareholders climbed 75 percent to 1.31 billion Swiss francs, its highest quarterly result in the last five years, from 749 million francs last year.

The strong profit was despite the impact from the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant volatile market environment.

Pre-tax income grew 13 percent to 1.2 billion francs. Excluding the gain from the InvestLab transfer and major litigation provisions, pre-tax income would have been 951 million francs, down 11 percent year on year.

Net revenues for the quarter grew 7 percent to 5.78 billion francs from 5.39 billion francs a year ago. Excluding InvestLab transfer gain, net revenues would have been up 2 percent.

Provision for credit losses for the quarter was 568 million francs, up from 81 million francs last year.

Looking ahead, the company said "the scale of the adverse economic impact of the COVID- 19 crisis is still difficult to assess and we would caution that we may also see further reserve build and impairments in the coming quarters, particularly in our Corporate Bank and other loans, outside Switzerland, as well as from our investments in Asset Management."

The company also cautioned that the recovery in advisory and underwriting fees might be limited, at least in the short term until the COVID-19 pandemic eases and the global economy begins to recover.