If you worked for a Swiss bank or have aspirations to become gainfully employed by one, you might want to be on team Credit Suisse, according to a FINS analysis of the CS Q4 earnings call and UBS's Q4 report.
Sure, the bank's fourth-quarter net income of 800 million Swiss francs ($749.1 million) pales in comparison to UBS's profit of 1.21 billion Swiss francs ($1.12 billion) during the same period, but Credit Suisse's 2010 outlook may be brighter than that of its cross-town rival, especially when it comes to hiring and retaining staff.
Credit Suisse's results missed analyst expectations today and its fourth-quarter profit was a far cry from the $2.4 billion Swiss francs it generated the previous quarter but the overall market slowdown was partly to blame. For the full year, the bank had a profit of 6.72 billion francs, compared with a 2008 loss of 8.22 billion francs. Plus, the bank can claim bragging rights of getting through the financial meltdown of 2008 without any government aid, unlike UBS.
In the starkest contrast to UBS, the private banking unit of Credit Suisse delivered 42 billion Swiss francs in net new assets for the year, according to its earnings call, while UBS bled 90 billion francs for the year, as written in the UBS Q4 report. Assets under management at Credit Suisse were up 16% at the start of 2010 and the bank said it expects market share gains to continue through the year.
One of the reasons for UBS's woes stems from the mass exodus of its wealth managers who took their clients with them when they left. Headcount among its managers in Europe fell to a little over 27,500 at the end of 2009, an 11% drop from 30,016 the previous year. The unit's U.S. counterpart lost 18% of its managers, reducing the workforce to 16,925 from 20,623, according to UBS's fourth-quarter filing.
Meanwhile, Credit Suisse hired 50 additional senior relationship managers to its ranks in 2009.
"We continued with talent upgrades especially with focus on senior leadership managers. As a result, net assets from new hires in 2009 more than doubled compared with in 2007," said Renato Fassbind, the bank's chief financial officer, in a presentation to reporters today. He added the bank is continuing to see good opportunities in hiring senior relationship as it looks to capitalize on its competitive foothold.
Credit Suisse's overall staff levels dropped slightly to 47,600 from 47,800 last year.
By contrast, personnel numbers fell in every business division and geographic region at UBS in 2009. Total staff levels fell 16% to 65,233 at the end last year from 77,783 in 2008.
Write to Yoree Koh