I thought Patrick Boyle was a comedy channel. But it's hard to tell. It's always funny when rich idiots lose money. It's like when Brits cook. Always funny.
Not a Credit Suisse customer, but I do live in Switzerland and have many friends with CS accounts and/or who have worked there. A lot of people were scared about their deposits and were in lines to get their money out yesterday. Also one friend who worked at Credit Suisse for almost 20 years said he's not surprised in the slightest because literally every 18 months while working there, they had some kind of major restructuring or shake up in management and organization. The internal incentives towards their investment banking business were very rewarding towards big risk taking, with great access to borrow from or against other parts of the business to make big bets with very little consequences for when things went bad. Overall a horrible way to run a business.
>restructuring every 18 months Not CS or investment banking but when I worked for a medium sized German bank we had department shuffles every other year. Lord, was it dumb.
My partner has an CS account and had an appointment at the local CS branch today. She said it was very busy. A lot of customers were there because they demanded to know what will happen to their accounts...
Fantastic video, Bagel. I found your message to be thorough and well-balanced as a seasoned Swiss banker who currently resides in Switzerland. I also understood the underlying justification for why AT1 bond investors could be treated worse than equity holders. I didn't spend the time to thoroughly analyze the question because I don't invest in these kinds of instruments, but you answered a crucial legal query for me. I'm grateful.
@janecatlin Simply by pasting Maria Teresa Tyler into my browser, her website immediately displayed. You've spared me from doing a lot of tedious research, so thank you.
Credit Suisse was one of the worst-managed major banks in the world. As someone who works in consulting, I can tell you 90% of my colleagues would be ready to bet CS would be the first major bank to fail in the coming years due to mismanagement and shady practices. Also, keep in mind - EU is MUCH better/stricter at regulating banks and corporations (and even though Switzerland is not a member of the EU, its corporations in most cases need to follow the EU regulations to operate on its market). If this happened in the US, CS would simply lobby away its demise for another few years and drag many more investors/customers down with itself.
People keep saying the EU is so strict and such, but tell that to the literal mountain of cash that's been laundered through Credit Suisse. It was literally the money laundering king of Europe.
Dude I legit almost fell off my couch laughing when you said the WWE Smackdown line and cut to the clip. You are the best Richard. Please never stop slipping in those nuggets
I'm not surprised by what happened to CS. I worked for them and left almost two years ago. They were a hot mess then and things obviously got much worse since I left. I'm glad I got out when I did.
That ‘hot mess’ battled on for years. Then you left Denis and look what happened 😳 It’s all your fault! Seriously, I’m glad that you got out while you could and I hope that you’ve found more secure employment 👍
Credit Suisse had such a great run before 08, it feels like every management ever since try to either get back to historical high earning and/or ''turn the tide'' by doing stupid risky stuff, fall further, then do more risky stuff.
I remember in 08 there was lots of speculation/pressure for CS to buy UBS (and the the Swiss National Bank) wanted to prevent a single megabank being why it didn't.
Matt Levine wrote an entire piece about how the AT1 are considered equity from a regulatory perspective and were intended to be wiped out before stockholders. It seems like most investors did not read the fine print on those contracts (not even CS).
More bold print than fine print. Implied in the name of "Additional Tier 1" and explicitly stated in the docs... Weird how myopic investors can be sometimes. Seems they just assumed since it was labeled as a bond that it would have seniority over equity.
As a German resident of Switzerland, the developments over the last few years were really interesting to observe. UBS and Credit Suisse are outsize for a small country like Switzerland, but essential for the Swiss self-image as the world's business-friendly center for banking services. Now people are worried what's going to happen if a behemoth like "new UBS" is going to be in trouble, as it happened in 2008. Will it be too big to fail AND too much to handle for the government? But the writing was on the wall for a longer time. Some CS scandals were comically criminal, like getting private investigators to tail former execs after moving to UBS, all the money laundering, the list goes on. I do believe the current leadership team tried to clean house, but how many times can you convincingly claim THIS was the last scandal? At the same time, the bonus culture that was essentially "imported" from big US investment firms was completely out of control, billions and billions paid out while losses piled up. Now thousands of people will lose their job as part of the merger.
Golden parachutes only apply when execs get fired, and bonus are a cut of the profits. Right now, they all just want to keep their jobs through all these layoffs.
@@t74devkw ZipTrader, ClearValue Tax, Scott Schafer, How Money Works, and Patrick Boyle. Each one has a bit of a different take with similarities and all that jazz
Feeling worried about Credit Suisse being bought out is a bit like feeling bad that Lex Luthor lost all of his money due to overspending on anti-Superman weaponry and losing the faith and investments of his fellow supervillains. Honestly? Good.
Problem is, the markets are never really rationale when they panic! If the reasons behind the fall of these large banks are their own mismanagement and scandals and all just happen to occur at the same time, its attributed to the banking sector as a whole! Hope this comes to an end soon.
When I moved here, I just looked at availability of branches and ATMs - as a grad student, it's not like I have lots of money to worry about. And so I picked Credit Suisse, and have watched it be in the news with my palm planted to my face ever since.
I'm a doctor and I tried to learn some economy but it's impossible to me and my way of thinking. Whenever I hear some logical disquisition I start to have lots of questions by the way and nothing makes sense in the end. Luckily Your videos were thrown in front of me, and now more things make sense, now I understand more. Thank you for this.
That humble brag lmaooo You are a national traitor that’s what you are. What you have done to human beings in the last 2.5 years… Eternal damnatiom awaits you.
@@Cecil_Augus ... you think an MD isn't a doctor? I have no idea what the OP's qualifications are, but your criteria for a doctor is pretty inaccurate.
You provide such a great analysis in an easy to follow manner. Canada's version of Patrick Boyle! We'll have to get you a job lecturing at Western Bus School! Great job on this Richard - thanks!
Great content! In times like these what we need is a guy simply explaining stuff, without strong opinions and "recommendations". BTW I remember back in 2022 there was a rumor that CS was hiding the fact that it plummeted also due to exiting Russian market. I don't know how much of it is true, but I'm sure there were such gossips.
So grateful for you. Simply explained and rationally analyzed. You are one of the three financial YT’ers I follow for that reason. FYI: the other two didn’t endorse FTX either. 🤣
New sub here, m8, I *love* your regular "slight-pause, "awkward" giggle (don't know how to describe it better!)!! At this point I laugh each time when you do this, great light comedic element to the otherwise serious topics. Thanks and cheers! ❤
Bagel is trying to paint the situation as if the scandals and dubious practices are what brought down Credit Suisse, but failed to mention that the bank only got into trouble when they loss tonnes of their rich investor's money from bad investments. Shady activities don't matter if investors are making money, as evidenced by so many financial institutions.
I've a friend who worked for almost a decade in our local branch of credit suisse, and she had always mentioned the bank was on rocky grounds, and with every year she stayed, she always wondered if it will be the last. (Whether due to retrenchment of bank collapse)
Dude your friend works as a teller in a local branch. She has no idea of what goes on in their balance sheets or investing. She’s a minimum wage nobody 😂😂
That's basically how these particular bonds were structured. If they were senior to equity holders they wouldn't count as Tier 1 capital under Basel III rules. (Though I obviously haven't read the contracts for these specific bonds so I don't know if the Swiss regulator's decision falls within the stipulations of the contract.)
That was purely a regulator decision. If they had not intervened those bonds would be converted to equity shares and the bond holders would become part of the buyout. I assume (don’t know for sure) that the AT1 bonds didn’t trigger their contingency because the regulators knew that shareholders included more pension funds and AT1 bond holders were other banks, and they wanted to spare those pension funds further losses…
@@danielcarrapa3632 I don't think that's right. There are different kinds of AT1 bonds. Some get converted to stock whereas some are just wiped out when the contingency criteria are met. From what I've read, the AT1 bonds issued by Credit Suisse were of the type that get wiped out.
I stand corrected. You are right. I have more experience with German banks CoCos and only now realized that the conditions of the Swiss ones stipulate a write down instead of convertibility.
Thank you for this balanced take on the situation. A close family relation has worked for CS/CSFB for many decades, and it’s been indirectly an important part of my life as a result. Few people rock up to work determined to do a bad job. There are a lot of great people there, and I hope they can find new success at UBS or another firm.
In therm of the bond/shareholder thing. . . It is far more to the atypical nature of the bond than the atypical nature of the takeover. It was highly likely this would be the outcome based on the fine print. But since plenty of people just see "bond" and don't go farther...that is their own fault particularly with a company who likes playing the fine print in grey ways as CS did.
Love your content as always, would be interesting to see a video on the OTC derivative market and maybe Credit Suisse’s and other banks derivatives books. I have Learned so much from your rational grounded opinions.
My father was hired by First Boston many years ago. First Boston needed help and Credit Suisse bought First Boston in 1988. He retired in 2002. I hope his pension is secure.
We keep hearing about Credit Suisse bad practices. Would you consider doing a quick video summarizing these? And how does this compare with other "shady banks" (HSBC?) ? Thanks for the content!
most Hong Kong People support HSBC where Hong Kong is still the biggest profit segment like 50 % from Hong Kong alone? So no. HSBC is much more of a retail bank vs investment bank / private banking for credit Suisse
You build a reputation by being cautious and boring, but inevitably some whizz-kid comes along who sees that gambling and cutting corners can lead to big profits and big bonuses. Only has to go wrong once.
There seems a more general liquidity issue. Frequently stated that Americans have "excess savings". As that gets spent in an inflated economy, then that "excess savings" evaporates liquid assets. On top of that mortgages that aren't adjusting higher because they are thankfully fixed means the higher Fed rates impact short term borrowing and shrink the "excess savings" even faster. And when the savings are gone and bad short term debts from credit cards and credit lines start accruing.... well yea.
Suisse's stockholders getting something (however little) and 17B of bonds meanwhile are made worthless as part of the deals means governments will keep changing the rules on what investors in banks will get for shouldering risk. Even CS indicated those AT1 bonds enjoyed priority over stockholders.
@@sunnohh There's an insolvency process where these things are supposed to get worked out if a company runs into trouble. Stockholders getting paid ahead of *ANY* bondholders is unprecedented other than outright looting.
this was literally written into the AT1s, they served their intended purpose lmao. am I supposed to give a shit and feel bad that investors didn't read the prospectus
@@volakha It was regulators/SNB that had the power to push. CS had the power to walk. Up until Friday, supposedly neither company wanted to merge. Perhaps you should read up on Long Term Capital Management of the "revolver" defense, which is similar to Lehman threatening bankruptcy and unleashing armageddon of the system if they cannot get satisfactory terms. Although in theory it is dumb to give a worse outcome for everyone, much like a prisoner's dilemma, the threat of an action can negotiate better terms. Thankfully I do not have a stake in any European banks and, emphasis on how governments keep changing the rules and definitions (including what a "bailout" is), it goes without saying only a speculator would be willing to own most bank stocks these days.
How are these not the same scenarios that caused the 2007-08 recession? We’re seeing rounds of mass lay offs, we’re seeing the sudden and or slow death of banks, uncertainty in the financial markets, etc etc
I used to work at CS back in 2018. It was pathetic how terrible our tech infrastructure was. I worked in PB, and we ran the entire business off of a couple Microsoft excel sheets and a series of VBA macros. It was extremely inefficient and manual intensive. Our internal pricing system would freeze at least once a month. On those days, we wouldn't have updated prices on our assets, so we would have to look up prices manually on the BBG Terminal. I have a programming background, so I would try and convince senior management that our tech was holding us back. I couldn't get them to even conceive of a more streamline process. They didn't seem to understand that you should be writing programs for these processes to occur automatically rather than hire 10 people to copy paste stuff into xl sheets. What a joke. I stayed for a year, then left.
You explained very well that CS was a train wreck going to happen because of poor management. I've heard many times in the industry the inaction of the finma and the snb to take control of the situation and start asking to disinvest the different business units and regions. But seemed here than finma acted with nationalistic views ignoring the alarms and not of thinking in behalf of the public good. The deal with UBS stinks as a cover up of Swiss banking practices.
Laughed out loud when the WWE moment happened. Now that's the appropriate quality and amount of humor I do accept in educational videos. Thank you for your work!
What is interesting that all banks did not have to start using their 'capital requirements' e.g. buffers. Regulators in both the US and Europe shut down or forced takeovers of banks that were in trouble. So even though we have made all these requirements a lot stricter after 2008, we did not want to see how it would play out. If this is the case, do these buffers help? Even if we 10x the capital requirements, if regulators intervene before the buffers have to be used it doesn't really matter how high the buffers are right?
There is a mistake in this video: AT1 “bonds” are not bonds but a type of equity, see Mark Levines article on Bloomberg. The 3rd condition of AT1 for both CS and UBS is they can be liquidated to 0 if the bank drops too low in order to shore up the common stock. Common misunderstanding here
Exactly, nobody seems to read the prospectus. To be honest, the fact that AT1 bonds at other banks in Europe dropped after the CS happenings makes me think nobody is thinking seriously about this as a very real risk factor and gives me more concern than the whole CS situation.
you probably need more lighting on you. camera's aperture seems to be opening too large making shallow depth of field so that it can choose to focus on you or your logo but not both. it chose your logo.
AT1's are also SUPPOSED to be zeroed out (or converted) before equity becomes worthless, that's their whole purpose. I don't understand how these institutional portfolio managers didn't understand this very clearly laid out function of AT1'S before investing in them.
Thanks for the video. Already seeing people predicting severe hyperinflation or severe deflation with economic downturns following. Nice to have an expert opinion add more perspective.
I love your videos. More technical simplicity would help some of your viewers who don't know that much about banking. Maybe drawing out some of these liabilities.
man the financial world is going absolutely insane, I didn't even know another bank went down, this is absolute insanity and I'm glad your here to explain it
I think you should have gone over the fact that the Swiss government had to make to make changes to the regulations to let UBS take over Credit Suisse without getting the approval from the Credit Suisee shareholders. People stashed cash into Swiss banking because Swiss banks were known to be untouchables, this should make cash hoarders in Switzerland very jittery. Not to mention investors, looking at how screwed they are from all of this. I wonder how comfortable anyone would be to deposit or invest in Switzerland now.
Richard, I don't understand something: if Credit Suisse was subject to more stringent regulation around interest rate hedging than SVB due to being a European bank and a systemic one at that, then how come the regulator did not see that coming? And how come Credit Suisse collapsed like a regional American bank?
Because as much as Europeans like to boast about having the best regulations European bureaucrats are not some magical creatures who can’t get bribed by an extremely large bank with untold amounts of money. Dynamitsm was Europe strength not bureaucratic integrity.
Interest rate hedging wasn't CS's problem. With panic in the markets, everyone started looking for the weakest link - and a bank that had been making bad bets and staggering from scandal to scandal for the last 10 years or so fit the bill really well. CS had been on death watch for months now.
This virtue of "seriousity" is a fairy tale, dude. Something to appease reason, but with no basis in reality. This world isn't honorable. Wake, it's about time.
I’ve lost around 200 CHF of my speculative investment after I got in when the Saudis bought a huge chunk of CS. This taught me to never catch a falling knife again
Credit Suisse may be a frontrunner, but there are other strong contenders as well - what about Deutsche, HSBC, and Wells? They've all taken some big hits in recent years.
one of the evolution tools are "bottlenecks", a time of struggle where only units with the "right" adaptations survive. So this might be similar, banks are supposed to die like any other entity somehow. But i don't know enough about economics and would love to hear a word about this from the Bagel c:
What about them? None of these banks will be allowed to fail. The "money printer go brrr" thing is a tired meme at this point, but the governments of those banks' respective countries will literally print infinite money before allowing any of them to go under. Everyone knows this, the bank executives most of all. There is no amount of degenerate behavior these governments won't backstop with cash, no amount of willful negligence they won't rescue the banks from.
Great video, very informative. One question, though: If Credit Suisse still had a healthy balance sheet at the time of the take-over, why was it bought for only 3 billion an why was there a freeze-out of AT1 investors ? Shouldn't the assets still have been worth more than that and was it legal to decide to freeze out the AT1-investors without making them part of the decision process ? If I had been such an investor, I might not have been too delighted by that news, to put it mildly.
Not to mention those Bullet Swaps from Archegos... how are they gonna close those? UBS just ate a rotten calf, and now we're waiting to see if they're gonna throw it back up or die from infection.
Step 1 Open bank Step 2 Make recklessly high risk/high reward investments Step 3 Profit Step 4 Lose it all on high risk/high reward investments Step 5 Bailout Step 6 Profit Step 7 Repeat Step 2
I hope Professor Aswath Damodaran goes into the really nitty gritty of this. On one hand, this isn't his area of expertise, so he may not cover it at all, but if he does, it would be very interesting to hear his thoughts.
Swiss resident here. I bank at UBS. It has been obvious for decades that Credit Suisse's corporate actions were "questionable." Banks should be like Caesar's wife: Always above suspicion.
Capitalism can work if values beyond the balance sheet are taken into account and cared for. Customer goodwill, employee morale, careful management of resources. But we were given a system where only the buttom line is considered.
Anybody else ever notice that we are expected to save for a rainy day, keep a nest egg, and plan for the worst... but our global banking system can't plan for the end of clearly unsustainably low interest rates? Why do we let these clowns run our most volitile systems if we all know we will have to clean up their mess in ten years?
@@UnprofessionalProfessor I don't think that is it,not entirely, not really. I mean, these are the same chucklefucks that complain any time the government spends a red cent due to inflation, while at the same time ignoring any ramifications of fractional reserve banking... while standing on top of a house of cards... that will colapse and ruin them if the government stops printing money and raises the rates? They cause inflation, and then whine and doom say about inflation, knowing it will cause a rise in interest rates and a drop in investment... But they don't fucking protect themselves against said raise in rates? That isn't the money printer, that is dumb fuckers with too much power and money.
Because there’s insurance that covers for them (if you’re in the US, different countries have different rules), and governments are likely to bail them out compared to investments or keeping money via alternative means
Credit Suisse going down is so sad, it's the largest washing machine in the world
They weren't all into money laundering... Although it seems like they were all involved in either something scetchy or high risk.
theyll get another
was probably the only thing propping it up
Don't worry, The City of London is still around!
that reminds me of my favorite German tongue twister. I'll spare you the entire thing, but it starts "we Viennese washerwomen...."
The Plain Bagle and Patrick Boyle are the best financial news channels hands down :)
@childofterra obviously
Unfortunately Patrick made me fall asleep. Love his contents but …
TPB is great. Patrick Boyle makes good points most of the time, but he had one video championing trickle down economics so he has his faults.
I thought Patrick Boyle was a comedy channel. But it's hard to tell. It's always funny when rich idiots lose money. It's like when Brits cook. Always funny.
@@mzamilbr you need more coffee
Not a Credit Suisse customer, but I do live in Switzerland and have many friends with CS accounts and/or who have worked there. A lot of people were scared about their deposits and were in lines to get their money out yesterday. Also one friend who worked at Credit Suisse for almost 20 years said he's not surprised in the slightest because literally every 18 months while working there, they had some kind of major restructuring or shake up in management and organization. The internal incentives towards their investment banking business were very rewarding towards big risk taking, with great access to borrow from or against other parts of the business to make big bets with very little consequences for when things went bad. Overall a horrible way to run a business.
>restructuring every 18 months
Not CS or investment banking but when I worked for a medium sized German bank we had department shuffles every other year. Lord, was it dumb.
"friends with CS accounts". So... criminals?
@@klobiforpresident2254 That might have been an anti-fraud mechanism? It does seem silly otherwise.
And their IT is shit.
My partner has an CS account and had an appointment at the local CS branch today. She said it was very busy. A lot of customers were there because they demanded to know what will happen to their accounts...
Fantastic video, Bagel. I found your message to be thorough and well-balanced as a seasoned Swiss banker who currently resides in Switzerland. I also understood the underlying justification for why AT1 bond investors could be treated worse than equity holders. I didn't spend the time to thoroughly analyze the question because I don't invest in these kinds of instruments, but you answered a crucial legal query for me. I'm grateful.
@janecatlin Simply by pasting Maria Teresa Tyler into my browser, her website immediately displayed. You've spared me from doing a lot of tedious research, so thank you.
i thought his name was richard
@@vitamins-and-iron That is his name.
@@ScarlettMaraxa i know that is his name
Credit Suisse was one of the worst-managed major banks in the world. As someone who works in consulting, I can tell you 90% of my colleagues would be ready to bet CS would be the first major bank to fail in the coming years due to mismanagement and shady practices.
Also, keep in mind - EU is MUCH better/stricter at regulating banks and corporations (and even though Switzerland is not a member of the EU, its corporations in most cases need to follow the EU regulations to operate on its market). If this happened in the US, CS would simply lobby away its demise for another few years and drag many more investors/customers down with itself.
People keep saying the EU is so strict and such, but tell that to the literal mountain of cash that's been laundered through Credit Suisse. It was literally the money laundering king of Europe.
Duetsche does seem in race to the bottom with them. CS did make a breakout in the last two years though.
I have dealing with them. One of my clients
Lobbying is not a factor in banking regs, saying otherwise is castration worthy libel.
> EU is much stricter at regulating banks
Lol from my experience at Natixis I HIGHLY doubt that
Dude I legit almost fell off my couch laughing when you said the WWE Smackdown line and cut to the clip. You are the best Richard. Please never stop slipping in those nuggets
Morning Brew compared it with Crocs, which was another good one.
Sounds like this is what Buffett was referring to with “Only when the tide goes out do you learn who has been swimming naked.”
I'm not surprised by what happened to CS. I worked for them and left almost two years ago. They were a hot mess then and things obviously got much worse since I left. I'm glad I got out when I did.
I left CS last year, just 4 months working in Compliance with them made me realize how bad things where managed from the simplest thing....
That ‘hot mess’ battled on for years. Then you left Denis and look what happened 😳 It’s all your fault!
Seriously, I’m glad that you got out while you could and I hope that you’ve found more secure employment 👍
I think nobody who has been paying attention over the past few years is really surprised.
Credit Suisse had such a great run before 08, it feels like every management ever since try to either get back to historical high earning and/or ''turn the tide'' by doing stupid risky stuff, fall further, then do more risky stuff.
I remember in 08 there was lots of speculation/pressure for CS to buy UBS (and the the Swiss National Bank) wanted to prevent a single megabank being why it didn't.
Yes money laundering and tax evasion are very lucrative industries... why couldn't they just keep doing that?😅
Lol it's a bank it has never been well managed
Some of the CEO’s were foreign there, obviously not great managers.
@@041101213 It’s over 160 years old, it was managed well before, it’s the last 15 years that weren’t good.
Matt Levine wrote an entire piece about how the AT1 are considered equity from a regulatory perspective and were intended to be wiped out before stockholders. It seems like most investors did not read the fine print on those contracts (not even CS).
More bold print than fine print. Implied in the name of "Additional Tier 1" and explicitly stated in the docs... Weird how myopic investors can be sometimes. Seems they just assumed since it was labeled as a bond that it would have seniority over equity.
While it sucks there is so much uncertainty. The nice thing is my favorite finance channels are uploading so many more videos.
As a German resident of Switzerland, the developments over the last few years were really interesting to observe. UBS and Credit Suisse are outsize for a small country like Switzerland, but essential for the Swiss self-image as the world's business-friendly center for banking services. Now people are worried what's going to happen if a behemoth like "new UBS" is going to be in trouble, as it happened in 2008. Will it be too big to fail AND too much to handle for the government?
But the writing was on the wall for a longer time. Some CS scandals were comically criminal, like getting private investigators to tail former execs after moving to UBS, all the money laundering, the list goes on. I do believe the current leadership team tried to clean house, but how many times can you convincingly claim THIS was the last scandal? At the same time, the bonus culture that was essentially "imported" from big US investment firms was completely out of control, billions and billions paid out while losses piled up. Now thousands of people will lose their job as part of the merger.
life is simple. Plain Bagel posts a video. I click. I learn. I like. Thanks!
I hope no one in the the CS top management got hurt and they will get their bonuses and golden parachutes for their outstanding performance :)
Golden parachutes only apply when execs get fired, and bonus are a cut of the profits. Right now, they all just want to keep their jobs through all these layoffs.
Yeah the bonuses have already been confirmed for all CS employees.
I appreciate your level voice projection, it helps alleviate anxiety that others, doing the same as you, on UA-cam heighten.
5:46 Matt Levine wrote today that CS’s AT1s are junior to common stock, and that was very clear in the terms.
I love hearing different takes on this by financial channels.
What other financial channels do you follow?
@@t74devkw ZipTrader, ClearValue Tax, Scott Schafer, How Money Works, and Patrick Boyle. Each one has a bit of a different take with similarities and all that jazz
This is why I'm subscribed to this channel. Thank you for explaining this well. Kudos!
Feeling worried about Credit Suisse being bought out is a bit like feeling bad that Lex Luthor lost all of his money due to overspending on anti-Superman weaponry and losing the faith and investments of his fellow supervillains.
Honestly? Good.
lol
Wowza, life is just like movie!!!
Problem is, the markets are never really rationale when they panic! If the reasons behind the fall of these large banks are their own mismanagement and scandals and all just happen to occur at the same time, its attributed to the banking sector as a whole! Hope this comes to an end soon.
Banks close all the time. Now it’s just news worthy.
Wow!!! 1st time I've seen your channel! ❤❤❤ Breadth of freash air!🔥
You are fantastic at realistically breaking down these events for people outside of the finance world. Keep up the great work
When I moved here, I just looked at availability of branches and ATMs - as a grad student, it's not like I have lots of money to worry about. And so I picked Credit Suisse, and have watched it be in the news with my palm planted to my face ever since.
Well, as a depositor, your money should still be safe.
Don’t worry your $1000 deposit will be safe 😂
I'm a doctor and I tried to learn some economy but it's impossible to me and my way of thinking. Whenever I hear some logical disquisition I start to have lots of questions by the way and nothing makes sense in the end. Luckily Your videos were thrown in front of me, and now more things make sense, now I understand more. Thank you for this.
You are a doctor in what? Where did you get your PhD from? Oh, wait, you don't have a PhD? So you are not a doctor.
@@Cecil_Augusit is pretty hypocritical to ask "literally who?" When you did not even reveal yourself
Much more logical to take the most dangerous part of a “novel” virus and shoot that into people. 😬
That humble brag lmaooo You are a national traitor that’s what you are. What you have done to human beings in the last 2.5 years… Eternal damnatiom awaits you.
@@Cecil_Augus ... you think an MD isn't a doctor? I have no idea what the OP's qualifications are, but your criteria for a doctor is pretty inaccurate.
Your words tell me I should stay calm. Your expressions tell me I should panic.
Great analysis and I like how you compared it to SVB - from a Swiss person!
You provide such a great analysis in an easy to follow manner.
Canada's version of Patrick Boyle! We'll have to get you a job lecturing at Western Bus School!
Great job on this Richard - thanks!
Thanks Richard for the sound analysis! quite hard for me to understand the situation as someone that's not familiar with the industry
Great content! In times like these what we need is a guy simply explaining stuff, without strong opinions and "recommendations".
BTW I remember back in 2022 there was a rumor that CS was hiding the fact that it plummeted also due to exiting Russian market. I don't know how much of it is true, but I'm sure there were such gossips.
I'll be honest, my whole life I thought it was Credit Susie. I've never heard anyone say it out loud until now.
This is hilarious, thx
Credit Sussy
Not the Credit Suissyy
oWo oh no credit sussy wusyy made a fucky wucky...
sowwy all yo funds a gawn uwu
I too thought the same until recently lol
So grateful for you. Simply explained and rationally analyzed. You are one of the three financial YT’ers I follow for that reason. FYI: the other two didn’t endorse FTX either. 🤣
Who are the other two?
You can't say that and then not shout out the other two! The people want to know.
I'm guessing the other two are Patrick Boyle and How Money Works
New sub here, m8, I *love* your regular "slight-pause, "awkward" giggle (don't know how to describe it better!)!! At this point I laugh each time when you do this, great light comedic element to the otherwise serious topics.
Thanks and cheers! ❤
Bagel is trying to paint the situation as if the scandals and dubious practices are what brought down Credit Suisse, but failed to mention that the bank only got into trouble when they loss tonnes of their rich investor's money from bad investments. Shady activities don't matter if investors are making money, as evidenced by so many financial institutions.
This take on this one was really, really bad.
@@Cecil_Augus it's just the truth
"You won't have Credit Suisse to kick around anymore".
I've a friend who worked for almost a decade in our local branch of credit suisse, and she had always mentioned the bank was on rocky grounds, and with every year she stayed, she always wondered if it will be the last. (Whether due to retrenchment of bank collapse)
Dude your friend works as a teller in a local branch. She has no idea of what goes on in their balance sheets or investing. She’s a minimum wage nobody 😂😂
A video explaining the debacle with the 'Coco' bonds would be helpful. How can common shareholders get preference over bondholders?
That's basically how these particular bonds were structured. If they were senior to equity holders they wouldn't count as Tier 1 capital under Basel III rules. (Though I obviously haven't read the contracts for these specific bonds so I don't know if the Swiss regulator's decision falls within the stipulations of the contract.)
That was purely a regulator decision. If they had not intervened those bonds would be converted to equity shares and the bond holders would become part of the buyout. I assume (don’t know for sure) that the AT1 bonds didn’t trigger their contingency because the regulators knew that shareholders included more pension funds and AT1 bond holders were other banks, and they wanted to spare those pension funds further losses…
@@danielcarrapa3632 I don't think that's right. There are different kinds of AT1 bonds. Some get converted to stock whereas some are just wiped out when the contingency criteria are met. From what I've read, the AT1 bonds issued by Credit Suisse were of the type that get wiped out.
I stand corrected. You are right. I have more experience with German banks CoCos and only now realized that the conditions of the Swiss ones stipulate a write down instead of convertibility.
Thank you for this balanced take on the situation. A close family relation has worked for CS/CSFB for many decades, and it’s been indirectly an important part of my life as a result.
Few people rock up to work determined to do a bad job. There are a lot of great people there, and I hope they can find new success at UBS or another firm.
In therm of the bond/shareholder thing. . . It is far more to the atypical nature of the bond than the atypical nature of the takeover. It was highly likely this would be the outcome based on the fine print. But since plenty of people just see "bond" and don't go farther...that is their own fault particularly with a company who likes playing the fine print in grey ways as CS did.
Love your content as always, would be interesting to see a video on the OTC derivative market and maybe Credit Suisse’s and other banks derivatives books. I have Learned so much from your rational grounded opinions.
the WWE comparison caught me off-guard and my keyboard is now full of coffee
My father was hired by First Boston many years ago. First Boston needed help and Credit Suisse bought First Boston in 1988. He retired in 2002. I hope his pension is secure.
That "be safe out there" signoff hit different this time.
I love how the camera has decided your sign is the primary focus at the start of the video! :P
We keep hearing about Credit Suisse bad practices. Would you consider doing a quick video summarizing these? And how does this compare with other "shady banks" (HSBC?) ?
Thanks for the content!
most Hong Kong People support HSBC where Hong Kong is still the biggest profit segment like 50 % from Hong Kong alone? So no. HSBC is much more of a retail bank vs investment bank / private banking for credit Suisse
I was a customer of CS for 5 years before switching back to UBS earlier this year. Glad I got out before this whole thing crumbled
Was just watching your old vid when you posted this, good timing
As a historical economics nerd, I’m more sad that such an old and (formerly) reputable institution has fallen.
You build a reputation by being cautious and boring, but inevitably some whizz-kid comes along who sees that gambling and cutting corners can lead to big profits and big bonuses. Only has to go wrong once.
Calling Credit Suisse reputable is like calling a drug trafficker honorable. Laughable.
All things powerful eventually become degenerate. This is the long arch of history.
Meanwhile, Japanese 1000+ years bathhouse..
Thanks man 🤝👏 great work.
i find it really hard to believe that a bank this size could “ fail “ .
It really puts things into perspective…
There seems a more general liquidity issue. Frequently stated that Americans have "excess savings". As that gets spent in an inflated economy, then that "excess savings" evaporates liquid assets. On top of that mortgages that aren't adjusting higher because they are thankfully fixed means the higher Fed rates impact short term borrowing and shrink the "excess savings" even faster. And when the savings are gone and bad short term debts from credit cards and credit lines start accruing.... well yea.
Americans aren't really known as having "excess savings". You usually hear that Americans live on credit, and having bunch of credit cards.
@@maythesciencebewithyou The 1% do. They have more money than they know how to spend.
Suisse's stockholders getting something (however little) and 17B of bonds meanwhile are made worthless as part of the deals means governments will keep changing the rules on what investors in banks will get for shouldering risk. Even CS indicated those AT1 bonds enjoyed priority over stockholders.
I'm pretty sure UBS pushed hard not to honour those contracts as a part of the merger knowing CS has no ground to stand on.
Your investors are free to agree to any stupid capital structure they are willing to agree to, they had prior notice…
@@sunnohh There's an insolvency process where these things are supposed to get worked out if a company runs into trouble. Stockholders getting paid ahead of *ANY* bondholders is unprecedented other than outright looting.
this was literally written into the AT1s, they served their intended purpose lmao. am I supposed to give a shit and feel bad that investors didn't read the prospectus
@@volakha It was regulators/SNB that had the power to push. CS had the power to walk. Up until Friday, supposedly neither company wanted to merge. Perhaps you should read up on Long Term Capital Management of the "revolver" defense, which is similar to Lehman threatening bankruptcy and unleashing armageddon of the system if they cannot get satisfactory terms. Although in theory it is dumb to give a worse outcome for everyone, much like a prisoner's dilemma, the threat of an action can negotiate better terms. Thankfully I do not have a stake in any European banks and, emphasis on how governments keep changing the rules and definitions (including what a "bailout" is), it goes without saying only a speculator would be willing to own most bank stocks these days.
I love the context and the knowledge, very informative. Thank you so much!
How are these not the same scenarios that caused the 2007-08 recession? We’re seeing rounds of mass lay offs, we’re seeing the sudden and or slow death of banks, uncertainty in the financial markets, etc etc
Because declaring it as such is doomsaying.
I used to work at CS back in 2018. It was pathetic how terrible our tech infrastructure was. I worked in PB, and we ran the entire business off of a couple Microsoft excel sheets and a series of VBA macros. It was extremely inefficient and manual intensive. Our internal pricing system would freeze at least once a month. On those days, we wouldn't have updated prices on our assets, so we would have to look up prices manually on the BBG Terminal. I have a programming background, so I would try and convince senior management that our tech was holding us back. I couldn't get them to even conceive of a more streamline process. They didn't seem to understand that you should be writing programs for these processes to occur automatically rather than hire 10 people to copy paste stuff into xl sheets. What a joke. I stayed for a year, then left.
I'm guessing "senior management" were very senior.
You explained very well that CS was a train wreck going to happen because of poor management. I've heard many times in the industry the inaction of the finma and the snb to take control of the situation and start asking to disinvest the different business units and regions. But seemed here than finma acted with nationalistic views ignoring the alarms and not of thinking in behalf of the public good. The deal with UBS stinks as a cover up of Swiss banking practices.
7:48 is the market saying DB and MS are next in line? Makes me a sad customer of both.
We are indeed living in interesting times.
The loss of Debit Suisse will be deeply felt. This leaves just Deutsche Bank as the butt of future jokes.
A guy I know told me that history always repeats itself.
He said “they are making a depression and then they are start WW3, like WW1 and WW2.”
Laughed out loud when the WWE moment happened. Now that's the appropriate quality and amount of humor I do accept in educational videos.
Thank you for your work!
Nice work Mr.Bagel
🕯️🇦🇺🙏
Wow #23 trending on YT. Congrats!
What is interesting that all banks did not have to start using their 'capital requirements' e.g. buffers. Regulators in both the US and Europe shut down or forced takeovers of banks that were in trouble. So even though we have made all these requirements a lot stricter after 2008, we did not want to see how it would play out.
If this is the case, do these buffers help? Even if we 10x the capital requirements, if regulators intervene before the buffers have to be used it doesn't really matter how high the buffers are right?
I had to watch it five times. I think I get it now. Worth it!
There is a mistake in this video: AT1 “bonds” are not bonds but a type of equity, see Mark Levines article on Bloomberg. The 3rd condition of AT1 for both CS and UBS is they can be liquidated to 0 if the bank drops too low in order to shore up the common stock.
Common misunderstanding here
Exactly, nobody seems to read the prospectus. To be honest, the fact that AT1 bonds at other banks in Europe dropped after the CS happenings makes me think nobody is thinking seriously about this as a very real risk factor and gives me more concern than the whole CS situation.
you probably need more lighting on you. camera's aperture seems to be opening too large making shallow depth of field so that it can choose to focus on you or your logo but not both. it chose your logo.
AT1's are also SUPPOSED to be zeroed out (or converted) before equity becomes worthless, that's their whole purpose. I don't understand how these institutional portfolio managers didn't understand this very clearly laid out function of AT1'S before investing in them.
Thanks for the video. Already seeing people predicting severe hyperinflation or severe deflation with economic downturns following. Nice to have an expert opinion add more perspective.
6:47: "... which have deteriorated the value...": "deteriorate" is not a transitive verb (= does not take a direct object).
No one cares
I love your videos. More technical simplicity would help some of your viewers who don't know that much about banking. Maybe drawing out some of these liabilities.
Sick reference, bro! Your references are out of control.
man the financial world is going absolutely insane, I didn't even know another bank went down, this is absolute insanity and I'm glad your here to explain it
I think you should have gone over the fact that the Swiss government had to make to make changes to the regulations to let UBS take over Credit Suisse without getting the approval from the Credit Suisee shareholders. People stashed cash into Swiss banking because Swiss banks were known to be untouchables, this should make cash hoarders in Switzerland very jittery. Not to mention investors, looking at how screwed they are from all of this. I wonder how comfortable anyone would be to deposit or invest in Switzerland now.
I read through both UBS and CS 20f's and boy oh boy what it looks like when a well run bank submits paperwork.
7:47 what does this mean? what should be considered normal or acceptable?
I'm glad I can come here for the full story instead of being led by the nose by other, more breathless channels.
I thought it was pronounced "Credit Sus" this whole time...
The Credit Suisse execs responsible for this mess will still get paid handsomely to leave the company 🤬
Richard, I don't understand something: if Credit Suisse was subject to more stringent regulation around interest rate hedging than SVB due to being a European bank and a systemic one at that, then how come the regulator did not see that coming? And how come Credit Suisse collapsed like a regional American bank?
They did see it. It's all planned.
Because as much as Europeans like to boast about having the best regulations European bureaucrats are not some magical creatures who can’t get bribed by an extremely large bank with untold amounts of money. Dynamitsm was Europe strength not bureaucratic integrity.
Interest rate hedging wasn't CS's problem. With panic in the markets, everyone started looking for the weakest link - and a bank that had been making bad bets and staggering from scandal to scandal for the last 10 years or so fit the bill really well. CS had been on death watch for months now.
Because they are Swiss and very Swiss.
4:59 Does this mean you should buy if you are a value investor?
Maybe. Doubtful though
I'm Swiss, kind of shocked. Hope UBS brings some seriousity and stability to former Credit Suisse.
This virtue of "seriousity" is a fairy tale, dude. Something to appease reason, but with no basis in reality. This world isn't honorable. Wake, it's about time.
We tend to say "Seriousness" in American English. I have not heard seriousity in British English, but maybe it is a thing.
This video is so early, Plain Bagel didn’t even have time to focus his camera
I’ve lost around 200 CHF of my speculative investment after I got in when the Saudis bought a huge chunk of CS.
This taught me to never catch a falling knife again
friend I really love your content, but flashing those white papers after minutes of dark background kinda hurts fr
Credit Suisse may be a frontrunner, but there are other strong contenders as well - what about Deutsche, HSBC, and Wells? They've all taken some big hits in recent years.
Funny, I listed the same banks too, in the same order, before scrolling down to see this comment. Great minds eh?
one of the evolution tools are "bottlenecks", a time of struggle where only units with the "right" adaptations survive. So this might be similar, banks are supposed to die like any other entity somehow. But i don't know enough about economics and would love to hear a word about this from the Bagel c:
What about them? None of these banks will be allowed to fail. The "money printer go brrr" thing is a tired meme at this point, but the governments of those banks' respective countries will literally print infinite money before allowing any of them to go under. Everyone knows this, the bank executives most of all. There is no amount of degenerate behavior these governments won't backstop with cash, no amount of willful negligence they won't rescue the banks from.
If Deutsche Bank is the the next to fail, considering the credit default swaps are increasing in value then Europe is done.
Not well informed enough about Wells, but Deutsche and HSBC, definitely...
That's a nice Plain & Simple sign. Very sharp.
This is off topic, but I just got it!! I always wondered why the Plain Bagel had a logo with a little cowboy hat in a circle!
Great video, very informative. One question, though: If Credit Suisse still had a healthy balance sheet at the time of the take-over, why was it bought for only 3 billion an why was there a freeze-out of AT1 investors ? Shouldn't the assets still have been worth more than that and was it legal to decide to freeze out the AT1-investors without making them part of the decision process ? If I had been such an investor, I might not have been too delighted by that news, to put it mildly.
As a staff at CS, I don’t know what to expect now
As always an amazing take cutting though the fear.
Not to mention those Bullet Swaps from Archegos... how are they gonna close those? UBS just ate a rotten calf, and now we're waiting to see if they're gonna throw it back up or die from infection.
Credit Suisse, from a bank that started the Swiss railway network to a hell of controversies and mismangement leading to being acquired by UBS
About time. Was feeling craving 😊
Step 1 Open bank
Step 2 Make recklessly high risk/high reward investments
Step 3 Profit
Step 4 Lose it all on high risk/high reward investments
Step 5 Bailout
Step 6 Profit
Step 7 Repeat Step 2
I hope Professor Aswath Damodaran goes into the really nitty gritty of this. On one hand, this isn't his area of expertise, so he may not cover it at all, but if he does, it would be very interesting to hear his thoughts.
Swiss resident here. I bank at UBS. It has been obvious for decades that Credit Suisse's corporate actions were "questionable." Banks should be like Caesar's wife: Always above suspicion.
Capitalism can work if values beyond the balance sheet are taken into account and cared for. Customer goodwill, employee morale, careful management of resources. But we were given a system where only the buttom line is considered.
And for that you can "thank" Milton Friedman. You can also thank that clown for modern monetary policy.
@@raggedcritical Yeaaaah. (I like to "thank" Reagan as well... at least for certain things in the US.)
I'm from Switzerland and well, we all saw it coming years ago. lol 🇨🇭
You got this video out fast holy moly!
Hi Richard, would you please talk about credit unions in the United States in terms of exposure to such market woes?
Anybody else ever notice that we are expected to save for a rainy day, keep a nest egg, and plan for the worst... but our global banking system can't plan for the end of clearly unsustainably low interest rates? Why do we let these clowns run our most volitile systems if we all know we will have to clean up their mess in ten years?
🤷♂️
Because they usually have access to money printer, and money printer go "brrr?"
@@UnprofessionalProfessor I don't think that is it,not entirely, not really. I mean, these are the same chucklefucks that complain any time the government spends a red cent due to inflation, while at the same time ignoring any ramifications of fractional reserve banking... while standing on top of a house of cards... that will colapse and ruin them if the government stops printing money and raises the rates? They cause inflation, and then whine and doom say about inflation, knowing it will cause a rise in interest rates and a drop in investment... But they don't fucking protect themselves against said raise in rates?
That isn't the money printer, that is dumb fuckers with too much power and money.
Because there’s insurance that covers for them (if you’re in the US, different countries have different rules), and governments are likely to bail them out compared to investments or keeping money via alternative means
Then WTF do you think Basel III is about, Mr Wallace?