UBS Completes Credit Suisse Takeover

UBS has finalized its emergency takeover of fallen rival Credit Suisse, creating a giant Swiss bank with nearly $1.7 trillion in assets in the biggest banking tie-up since the 2008 global financial crisis, Hanna Ziady reported for CNN.

Photo Insert: The government has said that allowing Credit Suisse— one of the world’s 30 most important banks — to fail would probably have triggered an international financial crisis.

The legal closure of the acquisition “brings clarity and stability for the two banks,” Switzerland’s financial regulator FINMA said in a statement Monday. “FINMA welcomes UBS’s strategic focus, which foresees a rapid reduction of risk in investment banking.”

UBS agreed on March 19 to buy Credit Suisse for the bargain price of 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.25 billion) in a rescue orchestrated by Swiss authorities to avert a banking sector meltdown.

The government has said that allowing Credit Suisse— one of the world’s 30 most important banks — to fail would probably have triggered an international financial crisis.

“It’s the start of a new chapter — for UBS and the global financial industry,” UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti and the lender’s chairman Colm Kelleher said in an open letter published in the Financial Times and shared with CNN.

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