Credit Suisse in the third quarter had a significantly lower profit than a year ago, mainly due to one-time gain in 2019. Given that the business is growing despite the corona-pandemic and a strong franc, the board announced its willingness to pay out the second installment of its dividend.
Net income for the third quarter was 546 million Swiss francs ($600 million), down 38 percent from the 881 million posted a year ago, according to a statement released by Credit Suisse on Thursday. Pretax, which amounted to 803 million francs, was down 30 percent from last year due primarily to non-repetition of last year’s InvestLab gain of 327 million.
Analysts surveyed by «AWP» had forecast net income of 620 million francs and pretax of 943 million francs.
Dividend Payment and Share Buyback
The nine-month return on tangible equity (RoTE) was 9.8 and the CET1 ratio stacked up at 13 percent in the third quarter, up from 12.5 percent in the second. The board recommends shareholders to approve the second half of the 2019 dividend of 0.1388 francs per share at the forthcoming extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on November 27, 2020.
Also, Credit Suisse said it intends to restart share buybacks in January 2021, with a 2021 share buyback program of up to 1.5 billion and an expected repurchase of a minimum of at least 1.0 billion next year.
