Credit Suisse to lose 2,000 jobs at Canary Wharf

Chief executive Tidjane Thiam reveals bank slashed bonuses by 36 per cent last year

Credit Suisse is to axe another 2,000 jobs this year, on top of the 4,000 redundancies it had already announced, with the bulk of them at its investment bank, based in London’s Canary Wharf.

Tidjane Thiam, the chief executive, said: “The combination of a high and inflexible cost base, exposure to illiquid inventory in fixed income, historically low levels of client activity and challenging market conditions, has led to disppointing financial results.”

Mr Thiam said he expects the Swiss bank to make a loss in the first quarter. He also revealed that the bank had slashed bonuses by 36 per cent last year.

Rival banks, including Barclays and Deutsche Bank, are also scaling back their investment bank activities, with Deutsche’s chief executive John Cryan saying only last week that he does not expect the bank to make a profit this year.

Mr Thiam announced 4,000 job cuts at Credit Suisse last October. So far 2,800 have gone. The bank is sticking to its target of saving Sfr1bn (£730bn) a year by the end of 2016, but raising the target from Sfr3.8bn to Sfr4.5bn by the end of 2018.

Mr Thiam said Credit Suisse was winding down positions in financial areas which it no longer considered part of its core activities. This led to writedowns of $633m (£448m) in the final quarter of 2015 and another $346m so far this year. The bank plans to raise Sfr1bn from selling off more non-core assets.

Credit Suisse shares, which had fallen 40 per cent since Mr Thiam’s first plan to turn around the bank was revealed in October, closed up 13 cents at Sfr14.40.