Credit Suisse Group wants to sell its global trust fund, because it intends to redefine its business following a wave of scandals.
The global trust fund is actually the investment bank’s offshore branch for rich depositors.
The deal was publicized as the Swiss bank wanted to shield itself against insurance worth more than one billion dollars that included its branch in Singapore.
The investment bank announced that it had intended to sell its offshore branch in Singapore and to diminish legal entities in near future.
Credit Suisse has named 2022 as “a year of changes”, rebuilding to minimize risk-taking while it faces theories of alleged purchase or divergence.
Ulrich Koerner (59), who is an expert of restructuring, replaced Thomas Gottstein as CEO, following two years of enormous losses, court conviction for the Swiss bank and a 40% drop of shares’ value.
In court proceedings in Singapore this week, Bidzina Ivanishvili, the former prime minister of Georgia, accused that Credit Suisse’s trust fund did not take any precaution to stop him from losing 1.27 billion dollars.
The former prime minister blamed the trust fund of Credit Suisse’s offshore branch in Singapore that did nothing specific to protect his investments and did not “take the appropriate steps” to stop losses connected to fraud which was committed by its previous banker Patrice Lescaudron from Geneva.
The trust fund asked the Singapore court to dismiss the claim, because its size was “extreme”.
Patrice Lescaudron was Credit Suisse’s “vessel” for Ivanishvili’s business. The banker began “fraudulently mismanaging” the trust’s ventures and “misappropriating” the trust funds in 2007, according to Ivanishvili’s lawyer.
Credit Suisse intends to sell the majority of its trust fund in Guernsey, Singapore and the Bahamas to the Bank of N. T. Butterfield & Son Ltd. Moreover, Gasser Partner Trust will acquire the business in Liechtenstein.
Some ventures will prevail in Credit Suisse for a few clients.
