Changes afoot on Credit Suisse board

Credit Suisse yesterday announced proposed changes to the composition of its board of directors, including a new chairman appointee.

The Swiss bank said that in light of the good start it has had to 2009 and its "strong capital base, clear strategy, experienced board of directors and excellent management team", it is the right time to make such changes.

Current Credit Suisse chairman Walter Kielholz is stepping down from the top job and intends to stand for election as a non-executive director of the bank. Assuming the bank's proposal is accepted, he will be succeeded by current vice-chairman Hans-Ulrich Doerig.

Doerig is a career Credit Suisse banker and has held senior management roles with the Swiss bank since 1982. Urs Rohner, currently the bank's chief operating officer and general counsel, will become vice-chairman, subject to his nomination being accepted.

It is also being proposed that John Tiner, CEO of British firm Resolution and former CEO of the Financial Services Authority in the UK, and Andreas Koopmann, CEO of Bobst Group, join the board.

Richard E Thornburgh, a member of the board since 2006, will become chairman of the risk committee, in place of Doerig. Thomas W Bechtler, a director since 1994, will step down as he has served the maximum five terms.

"Credit Suisse is in a very good position to weather difficult markets if they persist in the coming months and to prosper when they recover," says chief executive officer Brady Dougan in a written comment on the changes.
 
The musical chairs at the Credit Suisse board is driven, to some extent, by developments at another Swiss firm, Swiss Re. Peter Forstmoser, chairman of the board of directors at Swiss Re, is resigning one year early and Kielholz, who is currently vice-chairman at Swiss Re, is stepping up to become chairman.

Credit Suisse announced earnings for fiscal 2008 on February 12, posting a $7 billion loss, attributable largely to the performance of its investment banking division. Contributing to the loss were: write-downs in its leveraged finance and structured products business; trading losses within emerging markets and leveraged finance; losses associated with foreign exchange derivatives in Asia; and trading losses in equity derivatives, convertibles, and long/short and event and risk arbitrage strategies.

The changes at Credit Suisse and Swiss Re come close on the heels of a change of chairman at Swiss bank UBS. UBS announced earlier this month that its chairman, Peter Kurer, will not stand for re-election after only one year in the job and Kaspar Villiger, a former Swiss finance minister, has been nominated to replace him. UBS also recently brought in Credit Suisse veteran Oswald Grubel as CEO after Marcel Rohner told the board in January that he intended to leave the bank.