Credit Suisse stock plummets

The CS share dives below the 5 franc mark. President Axel Lehmann meanwhile rejects a sale.

Credit Suisse shares continue to lose ground. The paper even dipped below the CHF 5 mark early on Friday. The bank's value has almost halved since January. The share finds no footing, investors no trust.

The deep fall in the share price - and thus the market capitalization - fuels takeover rumors again and again. However, Credit Suisse repeatedly vehemently rejects this. President Axel Lehmann made the last statement personally on Thursday.

"We have a 166-year history and I firmly believe that the bank's future as an independent company lies alongside other major banks in Europe and in Switzerland," Lehmann said in a video posted on Thursday's website Financial Times was published.

The bank's market capitalization is now a meager CHF 13.3 billion. Competitor UBS gets four times as much. She also had to lose feathers this year, but much less. The minus since January: 10 percent.

CEO Thomas Gottstein has meanwhile mutated into a fireman. New construction sites appear every week. One is about alleged money laundering, then the debacle surrounding former customer advisor Patrice Lescaudron, the Greensill affair or the Archegos scandal.

The list of bankruptcies at Credit Suisse is long.

This is one of the reasons why – despite the assurances of top management – ​​rumors about “super deals” keep circulating. But the reality is not spectacular.

The last major banking merger in Europe was 15 years ago, when the Royal Bank of Scotland snapped up ABN Amro.

The takeover was a disaster for everyone; Soon after, the once successful buyers' bank from Edinburgh had to be rescued with state funds, and the Dutch state took the remainder of the ABN-Amro-Bank in its arms.

The European Central Bank (ECB) recently summed it up dryly: "Large-scale transactions have become very rare in Europe." And so it will remain in the financial world. At Credit Suisse, this has its own reasons. Even the core business is not very attractive.

Global wealth management suffers from client de-risking, investment banking from the economic downturn.