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The big Swiss banks UBS and Credit Suisse are reportedly facing a merger. UBS President Axel Weber is in charge. Finance Minister Ueli Maurer has also been informed, reports the finance blog “Inside Paradeplatz.”
Will there be a big merger of the big banks? – A media report on Monday is fueling speculation. UBS and Credit Suisse are silent.
There is no confirmation from the two banks. But if the online portal “Inside Paradeplatz” is often well informed, a major merger of the big banks is imminent in Switzerland. According to a report on Monday morning, the project at UBS and CS is called “Signal” internally. And its goal, according to the article, is nothing less than the merger of the two institutes into a single large Swiss bank.
Urs Rohner, president of CS.
The promoter of the project is, therefore, the president of UBS, Axel Weber. President Urs Rohner is also said to be involved in CS. The blogger and operator Lukas Hässig refers, on the one hand, to sources inside the banks.
On the other hand, sources from the consulting firm McKinsey, which participates in the two large banks, also speak of something that “would overshadow everything that has existed in the financial center.” Weber’s goal is to become No. 1 in continental Europe’s banking center with the merged large bank.
The great silence of the big banks
A Weber spokesperson told the blog Sunday that the rumors were “basically not discussed.” At CH Media’s request on Monday, Credit Suisse’s media office wrote: “We saw the report. In principle, we do not comment on market rumors. “And a UBS spokesperson replied:” We generally do not comment on such rumors. “
Apparently rumors are taken seriously on the stock market. Regardless, both banks’ shares rose about 2 percent in early trading Monday, with CS shares slightly stronger than UBS. “Inside Paradeplatz” was already the portal that once triggered the resignations of Daniel Vasella at Novartis and Pierin Vincenz at Raiffeisen with revelations.
Ueli Maurer and the Financial Market Authority are also in the picture?
Officially, bank bosses are always silent on the issue of mergers. When “Switzerland at the weekend” asked Sergio Ermotti, the still head of UBS, about a merger with CS six months ago, he replied: “You will understand that I am not commenting on that in principle.” But he emphasized that the two big Swiss banks are not really big banks in the international arena anymore. Ermotti said the “too big to fail” debate was out of date, today it should be: “too small to survive.” Without a certain size, there is no future in the banking market.
Axel Weber, President of UBS.
If you go to “Inside Paradeplatz”, the merger plans are already well advanced. Specifically, politicians and officials are already involved. For example, UBS President Axel Weber spoke with Finance Minister Ueli Maurer about the merger of the two major Swiss banks. However, at the request of CH Media on Monday, the Swiss Federal Department of Finance in Bern simply said: “We are not going to comment on this matter.” It sounds similar in the case of the Federal Financial Market Supervisory Authority Finma, which has already been contacted on the matter of the merger as the supervisory authority according to “Inside Paradeplatz”: “We do not comment on that,” writes a spokesperson.
