ZURICH – Credit Suisse today said it will name two risk-management veterans to its board of directors after the Swiss banking giant was rocked by meltdowns at financial firms Greensill and Archegos.
The bank’s new chairman, Antonio Horta-Osorio, has vowed to make risk management a priority since he took over in April, in the wake of the financial fiascos.
Credit Suisse said it is proposing Axel Lehmann, a former executive at Swiss rival UBS, as chair of the risk committee. The Swiss is an adjunct professor at University of St Gallen.
He will take over from Richard Meddings, who has been interim chairman of the risk panel since his predecessor abruptly resigned in April.
The bank also nominated Juan Colombas, a non-executive director and member of the audit and risk committees at Dutch bank ING, to serve on its board. The Spaniard is a former executive at Lloyds Banking Group.
Credit Suisse will hold an extraordinary general meeting of its board on October 1 to elect the two new members.
Horta-Osorio in a statement said the two, with their three decades of experience in financial services, “will make an invaluable contribution as we shape the bank’s strategic realignment, and enhance our culture of risk management and personal responsibility and accountability”.
The implosion of United States hedge fund Archegos earlier this year cost Credit Suisse some US$5.5 billion (RM23.3 billion).
An independent external investigation into the Archegos catastrophe found a failure to manage risk effectively at Switzerland’s second-biggest bank.
The lender has also been repaying billions of dollars to investors who placed money in funds linked to the collapse of Britain’s Greensill.
An investigation into the Greensill affair is expected to end in the third quarter. – AFP, August 13, 2021
