Credit Suisse to cut bonus pool further

ZURICH - Reuters

Credit Suisse will cut its bonus pool for 2012 by 20 percent to around 2.3 billion Swiss francs ($2.52 billion), the fourth year in a row the Swiss bank has slashed payouts, a newspaper reported yesterday.

Citing unnamed sources, Der Sonntag said the 20,000 employees of Credit Suisse’s investment bank were allocated significantly over 1 billion francs, while the 14,000 staff of the private bank would get some 400-500 million francs. A Credit Suisse spokeswoman declined to comment.

The expected payout of 2.3 billion francs compares to 3 billion francs the bank allotted to bonuses in 2011 and 5 billion it paid in 2010. Der Sonntag said the pool was likely to sink another 20 percent this year.
Credit Suisse, which has suffered from sluggish markets in the wake of the crisis, is axing jobs as it seeks to make 4 billion francs of cost savings by 2015.

Reuters reported earlier this month that the bank is preparing to offload more risk exposure to investment bank staff in its 2012 bonus giveaway but significantly fewer managers will be allowed to join the scheme.