About half of an offer by Credit Suisse to repurchase its debt securities was taken up by creditors at the end of an initial deadline. That deadline has been extended.
Credit Suisse put out an offer to repurchase debt securities worth around 3 billion Swiss francs, of which about half was taken up by creditors by the end of an initial deadline. Holders of several US dollar-denominated debt securities can still offer to sell them back to the bank until Thursday, according to announcements on Friday.
On October 7 Credit Suisse launched a buyback offer for eight senior notes denominated in euros and pounds for up to 1 billion euros. At the same time, it had announced a separate cash offer for twelve US dollar-denominated senior notes worth up to $2 billion.
Credit Suisse had justified the buyback by saying it wanted to take advantage of market conditions to repurchase the debt at attractive prices. The debt of the bank had been trading at significant discounts at the beginning of October after rumors in social media from the beginning of October around the solidity of the bank and also the share price had sunk to lows at that time. According to insiders, Credit Suisse also wanted to send a signal to the financial markets with the buyback of its debt.
