Credit Suisse Group AG (CS) 2021 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Great, and thank you, everybody, for joining us today. Before we begin, let me remind you of the important cautionary statements on Slides 2 and 3, including in relation to forward-looking statements, non-GAAP financial measures and Basel III disclosures. For a detailed discussion of our results and the Archegos reports, I refer you to the Credit Suisse second quarter 2021 financial report and the Archegos report published this morning.

On the line with me today are Thomas Gottstein, our Group CEO; and David Mathers, our Group CFO. Thomas will give you an overview of our second quarter performance. And after his remarks, you will have the opportunity to ask questions.

I will now hand over to Thomas.

Thank you, Christine. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining our call to discuss our second quarter and first half 2021 results. As part of my introduction, I would like to make a few comments. Firstly, this has been an incredibly challenging first half of the year for our bank and for all our stakeholders, overshadowed, of course, by the Archegos and Supply Chain Finance Fund matters. We are taking these events very seriously and are determined to learn all the right lessons. We firmly believe we can and will emerge stronger from these events.

Secondly, we have taken action. We have taken action to address many of the issues, and we will continue to do so. Regarding Archegos, we have exited all the remaining positions in early June and today have released the independent investigation report. We have proactively derisked our Prime Services business and overachieved the goals we set out in the first quarter to reduce risk-weighted assets and leverage exposure in the Investment Bank. We made key hires. And we have reviewed our risk appetite across the bank, and we are proactively strengthening the overall risk culture across the group.

Thirdly, our underlying business remains healthy. For the second quarter, we delivered a reported pretax income of CHF 830 million. And for the first half of 2021, we managed to move back into profitability on a reported basis. We achieved this despite incurring around CHF 5 billion in losses related to Archegos. This resilience is a testament to our people, our businesses, and our global franchise, and it shows and demonstrates and puts the basis for us to be confident that we'll continue to drive growth in the future. Furthermore, and this is very important, we strengthened our CET1 ratio to 13.7% from 12.2% at the end of the first quarter.

Fourthly, we have a clear priority for the coming months. And this is a series of priorities actually. And this includes, first of all, maximizing the cash distributions to our Supply Chain Finance Funds investors and continuing to strengthen our first and second line of defense risk approach and governance. Most importantly though, we remain fully focused on serving our private, corporate and institutional client needs around the world. Let me be clear, we are open for business. In parallel, we shall continue our work around the group strategy review together with our Board of Directors and the Executive Board.

Before I move on to the slides, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our clients for the trust they continue to place in Credit Suisse. I would also like to express my immense gratitude to all our employees around the world for their dedication and professionalism. They pulled together in difficult circumstances to deliver great solutions to our clients and to create sustainable value over the long term. I'm very proud of what our employees are continuing to achieve every day for Credit Suisse and for all our stakeholders.

With that, let me turn to the slides. So on Slide 4, we summarize the key highlights of the second quarter and outline our resilient financial performance in the context of an enhanced risk approach and ongoing investments. During the second quarter, we reduced risk-weighted assets and leverage exposure in the Investment Bank by USD 20 billion and $41 billion, respectively. At the same time, we delivered on key investments, including expansion of our private banking coverage teams, notably in Asia and specifically in China, our investments in technology and in other areas across the bank.

We reported a pretax profit of CHF 830 million for the second quarter and a net profit attributable to shareholders of CHF 253 million. This includes quarterly loss -- a quarterly loss of approximately CHF 600 million relating to Archegos and approximately CHF 300 million gains on the Allfunds position. Adjusted pretax profit, excluding significant items and excluding Archegos, was CHF 1.3 billion, reflecting the underlying strength of our business.

Assets under management in our Wealth Management franchise increased to a record high of CHF 853 billion, supporting robust recurring fee growth year-on-year. We saw continued strength in the Swiss Universal Bank, including the successful completion of Neue Aargauer Bank integration and continued momentum in the rollout of CSX, our digital retail offering here in Switzerland.

Our Investment Bank was resilient in the face of a significant reduction of risk and the less favorable trading environment. On an adjusted basis and excluding Archegos, we achieved a pretax profit of USD 601 million in the second quarter. We achieved a strong performance in Asset Management, with adjusted pretax income up 26% year-on-year. And finally, we significantly improved our capital position, as I said, CET1 ratio of 13.7% and our Tier 1 leverage ratio was 6.0%, and our CET1 leverage ratio 4.2%. So just to be clear, the Tier 1 ratio was -- leverage ratio was 6%, and the CET1 leverage ratio was 4.2%, apologies.

Slide 5. Regarding Archegos, I will be clear. The total loss of approximately CHF 5 billion is unacceptable, and the independent report pointed to a number of failures. We have learned serious lessons and have taken multiple thorough steps to address these issues across the bank. Appropriate HR-related actions have also been taken.

You see here on this slide the selected key findings of the independent 160-page report, which we have made available in full on our website. We wanted to be fully transparent about this. The findings in the report include failure to effectively manage risk in Prime Services by both lines of defense, a lack of escalation and of controlling limit accesses, a failure to discharge supervisory responsibilities in the Investment Bank and in Risk as well as insufficient prioritization of risk mitigation measures including, for example, moving clients from static to dynamic margining. However, the investigation also found that this was not a situation where the business and risk personnel engaged in fraudulent or illegal conduct or acted with ill intent nor was it one where the architecture of risk controls and processes was lacking or the existing systems failed to operate sufficiently to identify critical risks and related concerns.

On the right side of this page, there are selected recommendations, including investment of additional resources in Risk, transitioning of clients to dynamic margining and reexamination of counter-party risk appetite and controls. The recommendation listed have either been completed or are in progress.

Let's go to Page 6. Let me turn to the Supply Chain Finance Fund matter. Credit Suisse Asset Management's priority remains the recovery of funds for investors in the forefronts. We have an upcoming fourth cash payment planned for the first half of August. Total cash paid out and current cash and cash equivalents stand at roughly 2/3 of net asset value as of February 25, to be precise at 66%. The expected overall recovery of the non-focused areas is greater than 90%. And with regard to the 3 focus areas, we plan to pursue every possible avenue to maximize recovery and are fully engaged with the respective parties. Finally, we continue to work on filing insurance claims.

Page 7, please. This slide shows our second quarter and first half results on both a reported and adjusted basis. While its reported PTI for the quarter was CHF 813 million, as I said, our group adjusted pretax income, excluding significant items and excluding Archegos, was CHF 1.3 billion. For the first half of 2021, our reported pretax income was a modest CHF 56 million, whilst the group adjusted pretax income, excluding significant items and Archegos, was CHF 4.9 billion, reflecting the strong underlying performance of our businesses.

I'd like to turn to Page 8, please. Here, you see how the underlying results stack up against the past few years. On the same basis -- on the same adjusted basis, the second quarter 2021 pretax income of CHF 1.3 billion is the second highest second quarter in the last 6 years. The first half of 2021 was the best first half over the same period, both in terms of underlying net revenues and adjusted pretax income.

Slide 9, please. As I mentioned, we recognize the critical importance of investing to seize growth opportunities. As you see on the left of the slide, on the business side, we have made significant new hires in Asia to build out our leading franchises. Our relationship manager base rose from 600 to 650 persons, which is the highest increase in many years and this was just in 6 months. We have further expanded our IWM mid-market M&A advisory capabilities, mainly here in Europe, and we continue to invest in our GTS Solutions within the Investment Bank. We continued the build-out of our Mainland China presence and deepened our footprint in other fast-growing markets. We are making ongoing investments here in Switzerland, be it in our CSX digital platform or in other areas like technology or cyber.

Let's move to the next page, please, Slide 10. At Credit Suisse, the health and well-being of our people is a top priority for us. As you can see from the left-hand side of the slide, whilst we would like to see more of our colleagues come back to the office, we have taken a cautious approach to returning to the office based on conditions in the individual countries and regions. As far as turnover is concerned, after a relatively quiet 2020, a year when everyone was getting used to the new normal of working from home because of the pandemic, industry-wide turnover has clearly increased in 2021. This is also true for Credit Suisse, but let me give you a little perspective on this.

Our turnover is very much in line with the past 7 years. And whilst we have had some regretted departures, notably in capital markets and advisory in the U.S., we have been investing in new hires across all major divisions, including in Investment Bank and in Asset Management.

Slide 11, please. Our group-wide assets under management grew 8% year-to-date to a record CHF 1.6 trillion, which should support recurring revenues going forward. Our group NNA number for the second quarter was negative CHF 5 billion, but stands at CHF 24 billion for the first half. We have seen positive market performance in Q2. In addition, we have seen strong growth in mandate penetration to 30% in the second quarter 2021, and we are on track to achieve our medium term ambition of 33%.

Let's move to Page 12, please. We have generated strong client business volume and strong client business volume growth across our Wealth Management businesses. You can see this on this chart. Our ambition is to grow annual client business volume by mid-single digits for the Swiss Universal Bank by mid to high single digits for IWM and by double digits in APAC. As you can see on this slide, we comfortably achieved those objectives in the last 12 months.

As you also can see from the bottom of this chart, we are showing the NNA numbers. And you can see for the 3 Wealth Management businesses overall that we had some negative outflows in each of those divisions. Given the overall circumstances as well as various derisking measures, this was quite normal and had to be expected, notably, in Asia. However, USD 4.2 billion of the Asian outflows were due to proactive derisking measures related to a small number of clients. We have also continued to see solid gross inflows across all 3 of Wealth Management businesses. For the first half of the year, Wealth Management NNA stands at a positive CHF 7 billion.

Slide 13, please. Wealth Management-related adjusted revenues, excluding significant items, rose 1% year-on-year in the first half of 2021. On the same basis, strong year-on-year growth in recurring commissions and fees and slightly higher transactional activity more than offset slightly lower net interest income.

Slide 14, please. The underlying strength of our Wealth Management-related businesses was demonstrated by the 32% growth in adjusted pretax income, excluding significant items in the first half of 2021 compared to the first half of 2020. This strength was seen across businesses, notably APAC. And return on regulatory capital in our Wealth Management-related businesses on the same basis was 24% in the first half of 2021, up from 19% 1 year earlier. We clearly also benefited from lower provision for credit losses.

Slide 15. The Asia Pacific region is absolutely core to Credit Suisse growth strategy. And as you see on this slide, the region accounted for 19% of the group adjusted net revenues, excluding significant items, in the first half of the year. So every fifth dollar almost of our revenues is coming out of Asia. For the APAC division, adjusted pretax income, excluding significant items, in the first half increased 75% year-on-year, with a return on regulatory capital of 35%.

Let's move to Slide 16, please. As you know, we established Asset Management as a separate division effective 1st of April, 2021. With this move, we emphasized the strategic importance of the business for the bank and for our clients. Its results underscore this importance. In the first half of 2021, adjusted Asset Management revenues, excluding significant items, were up 31%, driven by recurring management fees and performance and placement fees. Pretax income on the same basis grew nearly five-fold year-on-year, and assets under management increased by 11% in the first half of -- to CHF 471 billion. Actually, it grew 11% year-on-year. And net new assets increased solidly to CHF 11.6 billion in the first half. Contributions came from index from equities and from credit.

Let's go to Page 17, please. The underlying performance of our Investment Bank has been resilient. It has been resilient in the face of the Archegos matter, a more conservative approach to risk management and a normalization of sales and trading revenues after an exceptional second quarter last year, as you remember, due to the pandemic, sales and trading revenues were very high across the street.

Within our sales and trading, we saw significant normalization in revenues from the first quarter 2021 performance. We saw notable strength in securitized products, particularly our #1 ranked Asset Finance franchise. Whilst our M&A revenues declined in the second quarter, we have a strong M&A advisory pipeline, up both sequentially and notably on a year-on-year basis and now our pipelines across equity capital markets and leveraged finance are also healthy.

Let's move to Page 18. In the second quarter, Investment Bank revenues, excluding Archegos, were down 23% from exceptional prior year's levels. However, for the first half of 2021, as you can see on the right side of this page, revenue on the same basis grew 21% year-on-year, driven in particular by Capital Markets and Advisory revenues, which were up 82% year-on-year.

Slide 19, please. Given the additional Archegos charge in the second quarter, Investment Bank pretax income was a negative USD 86 million. However, adjusted -- on an adjusted basis and excluding Archegos, second quarter pretax income stood at USD 601 million. And for the first full half, adjusted pretax income on the same basis stood at USD 2.8 billion.

Slide 20, please. It was roughly 1 year ago that I announced the launch of our Sustainability, Research & Investment Solutions function, SRI, to help deliver on our ambition to be a sustainability leader. In the last year, SRI has made excellent progress executing its strategy and delivering value to clients and stakeholders. On the right side of the slide, you see a few highlights. These include CHF 133 billion in assets managed according to sustainability criteria at the end of the second quarter, up 13% quarter-on-quarter.

A great highlight for the second quarter for both SRI and the bank as a whole was our inaugural sustainability week. We hosted around 5,000 physical and virtual attendees over the course of the summit that began in late June in Geneva. We welcomed around 70 speakers to share ideas on how to drive sustainable growth. I was delighted to participate along with Lydie Hudson, Marisa Drew and members of the Board of Directors, and we are looking forward to future summits.

Slide 21. Let me summarize our key priorities for the months ahead. As previously discussed, we are continuing our progress in cash distributions to the Supply Chain Finance Fund investors and we are planning that the investigation is concluded in the third quarter. We are recalibrating our risk appetite at both the group and divisional levels, and we are strengthening our key risk management processes and risk control infrastructure.

In terms of governance, we have announced 2 important Executive Board appointments related to technology and risk management. Joanne Hannaford as Chief Technology and Operations Officer; and David Wildermuth as Chief Risk Officer, both starting in early 2022. I'm proud to have been able to recruit 2 such high-caliber talents for our executive team. We are more focused than ever to provide best-in-class services and advice to our private, corporate and institutional clients globally.

And finally, we initiated a joint group strategy review by the Board of Directors and the Executive Board with the goal to clearly define and articulate a long-term vision and a midterm plan expected to be finalized by the end of the year.

So this concludes my presentation, and I would like now to hand back to Christine for the Q&A. Thank you.

So we will now begin the question-and-answer part of the conference. Operator, let's open the line, please.

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Owen Walker at Financial Times.

Just a quick one. I've only had a brief look through the pool-wise report, clearly big data, lots of interesting stuff in there. I did notice one finding, which was in relation to cost cutting in the Investment Bank and how this had led to reduction in senior risk managers, I think the figure was 40% in a couple of years.

I was just wondering if on the back of that finding, this was something that you were kind of conscious of or maybe this might change your approach to cost cutting and taking a view on retaining more experienced staff. I know clearly, you're making hires elsewhere, but I just wondered if this would maybe change your view in terms of maybe backing some of that institutional experience and knowledge, which comes inevitably with some of the reductions in staff numbers?

Yes. Owen, thank you for the question. It's absolutely true that there were some cost cuts in the Equities division in Prime Services. We also lost some senior people for other reasons, was a very unfortunate accident also, a death of one of the senior persons in Risk in early '20. We also did see some reduction of senior people in the Risk organization, especially during 2019. And I do think that in -- with the benefit of hindsight, that this was one contributing factor but certainly not the only one and the main one, but there was definitely a few people with experience that we did not have that we used to have in both first line and the second line of defense.

Great. And in terms of -- I think another finding and key finding was the lack of escalating concerns up the chain. I know, David, you mentioned in the analyst call that the findings weren't that those processes were deficient. It was more that they weren't being followed. I'm just wondering what you've done subsequently to ensure that staff are following those procedures?

Well, we obviously had very clear instructions to all the respective, not only Prime Service-related first line of defense and related second line of defense employees, but globally, the importance of escalation. We reiterate this constantly also in our town halls, in our recent internal memos. It's very important that people escalate when there are issues, whether it's limit breaches, whether it relates to, for example, in this case, the fact that we discussed and actually advised to move certain clients like Archegos from static dynamic margining, but it was just not followed through. And these are the type of things that need to be escalated and this is something that each and everyone here on the Executive Board are telling our management committees, how important that is.

And your next question comes from the line of Brenna Hughes at Reuters.

First off, I'd like to ask where things currently stand with FINMA. Obviously, FINMA announced that it opened enforcement proceedings into both the Archegos and Greensill matters as well as the previous one has been running about governance over the 2019 spying matter. I'm wondering if you can give us an overview of where these stand now and what sort of discussions you've been holding with FINMA recently related to compliance but also capital?

And then on a separate note, I'd like to ask about China on the kind of a macro level in terms of the regulatory matters that have been ongoing there and that have been, I guess, affecting markets. What are you advising private clients in China to do at the moment? And how do you see overseas private clients adjusting investments in the country?

And then finally, we had a report out yesterday, which related to a meeting in China about that the securities regulator held with a number of banks, including Credit Suisse, and we'd like to ask about that, and if you might have any updates there.

Okay. Thank you, Brenna. I will start off and David, you can maybe chip in, for example, on the discussion with FINMA around capital and compliance. But on the various discussions around Archegos, Greensill and the Spygate topic, we understand that Spygate should be concluded very soon. In terms of Archegos, we have just started now the discussions and interviews. They will certainly continue. As you probably know, it's not only the Swiss regulator, but also the U.S. and the U.K. regulator who are looking into this, and it's not only with Credit Suisse, there were a handful of other prime brokers that we understand are being approached and will be part of that regulatory investigation.

And on Greensill, we, again, are in the process of having those interviews. So I cannot really comment on the timing of either Archegos or Greensill with respect to the conclusion of those discussions. I don't know if you want to add anything on capital discussions with FINMA?

No, I don't think there's much I really want to add. I mean I think Thomas summarized it well. I mean I think the important point for Credit Suisse was the publication of the independent report today, which have been commissioned by the Board of Directors. I would emphasize it's independent to Credit Suisse entirely and under the EGS of Richard Meddings as Chair of the Audit and the Risk Committee. And I'm sure there will be other regulatory investigations. Obviously, the FINMA is ongoing. And I would expect they will be reading this report as part of their work in those but I can't really comment beyond that.

I think in terms of capital, certainly, we did want to reduce RWA and leverage to these levels. And I actually said as much at the end of the first quarter, we obviously achieved it faster than I would have hoped during the second quarter, which I think is good. I think it's very good to move forward quickly in terms of this risk reduction exercises. And I think as I commented in a meeting earlier, there is, obviously, still USD 2 billion Pillar 2 add-on in respect of the Greensill matter, which I think were imposed back at the end of March.

And on your questions on China, overall and securities regulator, which I can take together. It's clear that alongside, there has been, I would say, a certain news flow on the regulatory volatility around China and certain rules about IPOs and tech companies, which adds somewhat to a less predictable short-term situation. But at the same time, what we are seeing is a very strong and robust economic development in China and the mid- to long-term potential not only in China but in the whole of Asia that we consider to be very attractive for our business models, be it in Wealth Management or be it in Investment Banking or be it in Asset Management. For example, we also have an Asset Management joint venture with ICBC that has been performing extremely well over the last couple of years. So this is also the reason.

And that brings me to your third question about our setup. As you may have read, we have now acquired 51% of the majority of our securities joint venture. We have renamed it from Credit Suisse Founders to Credit Suisse Securities China Limited. And we are fully committed to go to 100%. And we will also continue to build out our onshore capabilities across both Private Banking and Investment Banking and to achieve all the needed licenses that we need to have for lending, for wealth management and for securities purposes.

So this is a long-term path that will take several years. And clearly, as I said, there are some short-term developments, which are difficult to predict. But in the mid to long term, it's very clear that not only Credit Suisse, but many of our peers are investing in China and in the region to further expand our footprint there. Thank you.

And your next question comes from the line of Thomas Pohl at awp.

I wanted to come back to Greensill matter. I understand that what with a lot of people now on this matter. I wonder that do you have some kind of a time line, how long this matter still when this matter will be concluded?

We can hardly hear you. Sorry, we can hardly hear you.

Yes. We can hardly hear you. And to go back a little bit from your mic. You might be too close as we cannot hear you.

Yes, I think you're too close to your mic.

Okay. Is it better like this?

Yes.

Okay. The question is around Greensill. The question was, do you have any time line about when to conclude this matter? Do you have already -- have you heard about possible litigation already? And when will this topic -- when -- do you have to take some provisions for the Greensill matter maybe for pending litigations? When will this become a topic for Credit Suisse?

Yes. So on the time line, as we said already multiple times, we are working through the payables tool as they become due. And as we showed on the slide, we are now at 2/3 or 66% to be precise in terms of cash or cash equivalents or cash payments already done. And we have good visibility on over 90% of the non-focus area payables. Whereas on the focus areas, which is GFG, Katerra and Bluestone, we have very active dialogue with the relevant parties. And at the same time, we are starting now to post claims in terms of insurance.

There is a time lag between the moment that payable becomes due, and then we can actually post the claim to the insurance because it goes through Greensill Bank, and we have to wait between 60 and 90 days until we can do that. So this is just about to start. And all the discussions with the focus areas is something that will take several months, if not several quarters. We are obviously in direct contact with the Supply Chain Fund investors. They are aware of that. And from that perspective, this is something which will take some time.

With respect to legal provisions or lawsuits, I cannot really comment at this stage because at this stage, there are no losses. But clearly, we are fully focused now to maximize the cash proceeds for our investors. And then we look at it in a couple of quarters where we stand.

And your next question comes from the line of Jakob Blume at Handelsblatt.

As far as I've read the report on Archegos, so the highest level committee where the Archegos problems were discussed was this counterparty oversight committee. So therefore, my question is, when did you hear about problems with the Archegos funds? And what do you think is your personal responsibility in the whole -- yes, in the whole of matter?

The CPOC committee was put in place in last September and discussed Archegos twice. Neither the Head of Investment Bank, nor myself were part of that committee, which, by the way, is something we have addressed now. So the head of -- the new Head of the Investment Bank is part of that CPOC committee. And that was really one of the issues that is also well described in the independent report that Archegos was discussed, but it was not escalated. It was not followed through. The limit breaches were not acted upon. But that was the first line -- the first instance, an issue for the first line and not the second line, but then also the second line did not act upon it.

Myself, I only heard about Archegos when basically it hit the news. So I was not even aware of the existence of Archegos. But clearly, we all have responsibility. And we have the responsibility to take the right lessons learned from what happened and to make sure that something like that will not happen again. So we are fully focused on taking those right lessons on the entire Executive Board and through the entire organization.

I will now hand the call back over to Christine.

Thank you, operator. I will hand back over to Thomas for some concluding remarks.

Well, I would like to thank you very much for participating on this call. As I mentioned before, for me, it's very clear that what happened with both Archegos and with Supply Chain Fund is something which we take very seriously. This is also the reason why we actually wanted to present the full report on Archegos in a clear move of transparency. There are some very serious lessons to be learned from this. But at the same time, as you saw in the second quarter, we were resolute in taking actions, we reduced our risk-weighted assets substantially, and we improved our capital base to a very healthy 13.7%, which is the highest we've had in many, many years.

Our underlying business is very strong. We had CHF 1.3 billion of adjusted pretax income in the second quarter. We have record assets under management, and we are fully focused on doing business. We are engaged with our clients. And I want to take this opportunity again to thank all our employees globally for their dedication and their commitment.

And with this, I would like to close this call. Thank you very much for your attendance, and stay safe. Thank you. Bye-bye.

That concludes today's media conference call. A recording of the presentation will be available about 2 hours after the event on the Credit Suisse website. Thank you for joining today's call. You may all disconnect.