Credit Suisse, which has a large operation in Research Triangle Park, is cutting jobs worldwide – again.
The bank said Thursday it would boost its cost-cutting program as it posted a 63 percent fall in third-quarter profit following an accounting charge on its debt.
The firm’s website as of Thursday morning listed more than 40 job openings at its Triangle operation. It has some 1,300 employees on RTP.
Switzerland’s second-largest bank, which is already shedding 7 percent of its workforce, or about 3,500 employees, did not provide details on how many more jobs would be targeted as part of plans to cut an additional $1.07 billion in costs in 2014 and 2015.
Those reductions are to come on top of previously announced cuts the Zurich-based bank plans to have achieved by the end of next year.
Chief Financial Officer David Mathers told journalists on a conference call the bank will continue cutting jobs, though it doesn’t intend to disclose a target for headcount reductions.
The cuts were announced as the bank reported net profit of 254 million Swiss francs ($272 million) between July and September, compared with 683 million francs ($785 million) in the comparable period of 2011.
The bank attributed the decline to a pretax charge of 1.05 billion francs ($1.12 billion) linked to an accounting rule on how banks must value their debt. Banks can post gains if the value of their debt falls, because it would theoretically become cheaper for the bank to repurchase that debt. But the rule also says that when a bank’s debt increases, it must take a write-down because it would theoretically have to pay more to buy back its own debt on the open market.
Credit Suisse also said most of its credit risk is linked to its private and investment bank, adding that its exposure to Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain rose to €4.2 billion ($5.5 billion) from €3.9 billion three months earlier.
Chief Executive Brady Dougan said the bank is successfully implementing cost-saving measures it began last year and substantially reducing risks while realigning business and improving its capital cushion to meet regulatory and market demands.
“At the same time, we have significantly cut costs and improved efficiencies across the bank,” he said.
Analysts at Zuercher Kantonalbank said Credit Suisse’s third-quarter results met expectations, noting that investment banking and fixed-income trading had profited from the good market conditions while margins at the bank’s wealth management business were disappointing.
A year ago, the firm was in the process of adding some 300 employees, primarily in information technology, to its RTP work force of some 1,000 people before a round of corporate-wide cuts was announced.
In March 2010, N.C. State Treasurer Janet Cowell selected Credit Suisse to manage a new $230 million North Carolina Innovation Fund.
(Bloomberg news contributed to this report.)
