Last Sunday's purchase agreement of Credit Suisse by UBS for just over 3,000 million euros is a complex puzzle in which Spain figures as a prominent piece. The Swiss bank employs around 400 people in the country, manages assets of more than 10,000 million euros, has deposits of around 700 million and has around 3,000 clients. He is above all a national leader in the management of great fortunes. It is among the top three entities in this area and around a third of the family assets under its responsibility are in Catalonia.
On Monday the Spanish subsidiary held a management committee at its Madrid headquarters on Ayala street and addressed the staff by videoconference to explain the agreement reached with UBS. Throughout the week, meetings with clients who are restless about the changes have multiplied. So far, the bank reports that there is no customer flight.
However, there are unknowns about what will happen to the business. Credit Suisse Spain is dedicated to three areas: large fortunes, investment banking and services to Credit Suisse Europe. Each of them has approximately a third of the workforce, although the great bulwark is the great fortunes, an interesting business for UBS.
UBS expects to close the purchase of Credit Suisse at the end of the year, but first it must resolve the Spanish front, which has a very particular situation. At the end of 2022, UBS sold its business in Spain to the Spanish bank Singular Bank. The agreement includes a non-compete clause by which UBS will not be able to return to Spain for three years.
What is foreseeable now is that UBS does not let Credit Suisse's great fortune business in Spain escape and seeks an understanding with Singular to resolve the clause. It is likely that you would rather pay a penalty than give up the large net worth.
The investment banking area has the worst diagnosis, from which Credit Suisse wants to disassociate itself internationally. Most likely, it will be dropped to focus all the effort on large estates.
The new scenario could unbalance the bank's current double-headedness in Spain, in which Pablo Carrasco heads private banking and Nacho Moreno, from Barclays, takes over investment banking. For Credit Suisse, with bankers younger than average, it remains key to retain talent in Spain. There are rivals like JPMorgan or Julius Baer who could try to take advantage of the situation for new signings.
