Category Archives: European banks

European banks storing €20bn a year in tax havens

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Barclays and HSBC among banks booking money equivalent to 14% of annual profits in offshore entities

Leading European banks are booking around €20bn (£17bn) a year – equivalent to 14% of their total profits – in tax havens, with Barclays, HSBC and NatWest Group among those enjoying the lowest tax rates, according to a new report.

The figures emerge from an analysis, conducted by the EU Tax Observatory, of 36 big banks required to publicly report country-by-country data on their activities.

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Credit Suisse executives depart after Archegos and Greensill losses

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Directors’ bonuses scrapped as chief risk officer and investment bank chief exit

Credit Suisse has cancelled the bonuses of its directors, slashed its dividend and announced the departure of two senior executives as the bank revealed £3.4bn in losses from the collapse of the Archegos investment fund.

The Swiss bank is reeling from heavy exposure to Archegos and the business bank Greensill, which suffered successive but unrelated financial blow-ups.

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Top banks could be investigated over $20bn fire sale of hedge fund assets

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Collapse of Archegos has reportedly prompted SEC and FCA inquiries into Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Nomura and others

UK and US regulators are looking into whether global investment banks breached rules by holding group discussions shortly before launching a fire sale of nearly $20bn worth of assets belonging to the distressed hedge fund Archegos Capital Management, according to reports.

The Securities Exchange Commission is said to have requested further information from major US banks Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley, as well as Japan’s Nomura and Swiss lender Credit Suisse about a meeting with Archegos founder Bill Hwang on Thursday.

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Regulators around the world monitor collapse of US hedge fund

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Liquidation of Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management sparked a fire sale of more than $20bn assets

Financial regulators across the world are monitoring the collapse of the New York-based billionaire Bill Hwang’s personal hedge fund.

The sudden liquidation of Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management sparked a fire sale of more than $20bn assets that has left some of the world’s biggest investment banks nursing billions of dollars of losses.

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Credit Suisse apologises over black janitor act at chairman’s party

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Bank’s former chief executive reportedly walked out of room during act at party last year

A leading investment bank has apologised for “any offence caused” after it was reported that its black former chief executive left his chairman’s birthday party when a black performer dressed as a janitor danced on stage.

The New York Times reported that Tidjane Thiam, who ran Credit Suisse between 2015 and February this year, walked out of the room during the act at Urs Rohner’s 6oth birthday celebration.

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European banks urged to stop funding oil trade in Amazon

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Indigenous people in headwaters region say financing harms communities and ecosystems

Indigenous people living at the headwaters of the Amazon have called on European banks to stop financing oil development in the region, as it poses a threat to them and damages a fragile ecosystem, after a new report found $10bn in previously undisclosed funding for oil in the region.

The headwaters of the Amazon in Ecuador and Peru are home to more than 500,000 indigenous people, including some who choose to live in voluntary isolation. The area, covering about 30m hectares (74m acres), hosts a diverse rainforest ecosystem, but it is threatened by the expansion of oil drilling.

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Tidjane Thiam: the man who traded politics for finance after military coup

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Ousted Credit Suisse chief transformed Prudential before City regulator censured him

Tidjane Thiam is the scion of an influential family whose political connections and history spread across two West African countries: Ivory Coast and Senegal.

The 57-year-old came to prominence in the UK when he was named as the head of Prudential in 2009, making him the first black chief executive of a major British company.

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Credit Suisse chief Tidjane Thiam ousted after spying scandal

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The 57-year-old loses boardroom battle with Thomas Gottstein set to replace him

The Credit Suisse chief executive, Tidjane Thiam, has been ousted in the wake of a saga involving corporate espionage, an alleged car chase and personal vendettas that has sent shockwaves through Switzerland’s famously discreet banking community.

Thiam, widely seen as one of the finance world’s leading lights, resigned after losing a boardroom battle that erupted when the bank admitted to having hired private detectives to spy on former staff.

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Senior Credit Suisse executive quits over ‘extraordinary’ spying scandal

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Bank rules surveillance of outgoing head of wealth management Iqbal Khan was ‘wrong and disproportionate’

Credit Suisse has sacked its chief operating officer over an “extraordinary” James Bond-style corporate espionage scandal in which the bank hired private detectives to tail a senior executive and his wife through the streets of Zurich following a row with his boss at a cocktail party.

Switzerland’s second-biggest bank said on Tuesday that Pierre-Olivier Bouée had left with immediate effect after the board of directors ruled that the seven-day spying operation was “wrong and disproportionate and has resulted in severe reputational damage to the bank”.

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Deutsche Bank to pay $16m to settle US ‘princelings’ case

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Regulator had said it corruptly hired unqualified relatives of foreign officials to win business

Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay a $16m (£13m) fine to US authorities overallegations that it hired unqualified relatives of powerful Russian and Chinese government officials to win business.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleged that Germany’s largest lender had used false books to record the hirings, which meant the relatives – known in China as “princelings” – did not have to go through rigorous interview processes.

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Deutsche Bank starts cutting London jobs with 18,000 at risk worldwide

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Some staff in London reported to be in tears after hearing their jobs have gone

Deutsche Bank started slashing thousands of jobs in the City of London and in New York only hours after announcing a drastic plan to reduce its global workforce by 18,000.

Germany’s biggest lender employs almost 8,000 people in the UK, with 7,000 in London, which is one of the main hubs for its global investment bank, where the bulk of the job losses will be focused. The jobs being cut make up about a fifth of Deutsche’s global workforce of 91,500.

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EU could fine Italy £3bn for breaking spending and borrowing rules

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Italy’s debt amounts to 132% and servicing it costs more than annual education budget

The EU is poised to punish Italy over its “snowballing” spending and borrowing, putting Brussels on a collision course with the populist government in Rome.

In a move expected to raise tensions with Italy, the European commission paved the way for an initial fine of as much as €3.5bn (£3.1bn) on Wednesday after advising the country had met the threshold for disciplinary action.

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Ferrexpo could have done without the side show to its Deloitte spat

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A wiser board might have stopped Chris Mawe’s £400,000 share sale the morning before auditor quit

It is a rare for an auditor to quit the role at a London-listed FTSE 250 firm. So one might conclude it was merely unfortunate that Chris Mawe, the finance director at Ferrexpo, chose last Thursday morning to sell £400,000-worth of shares, just before events moved rapidly at the Swiss-based miner of iron ore in Ukraine. In the evening of the same day, Deloitte quit. On Friday morning, when the firm’s resignation was made public, Ferrexpo’s share price plunged by 28%.

The company had not received Deloitte’s letter of resignation at the time of the share sale, so there is – to be clear – no suggestion rules were broken. Even so, one has to ask if it was sensible for Mawe to sell last Thursday when so many unanswered questions hung in the air.

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Deutsche Bank faces action over $20bn Russian money-laundering scheme

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Exclusive: in confidential internal report seen by the Guardian, bank says scandal has hurt global brand

Germany’s troubled Deutsche Bank faces fines, legal action and the possible prosecution of “senior management” because of its role in a $20bn Russian money-laundering scheme, a confidential internal report seen by the Guardian says.

The bank admits there is a high risk that regulators in the US and UK will take “significant disciplinary action” against it. Deutsche concedes that the scandal has hurt its “global brand” – and is likely to cause “client attrition”, loss of investor confidence and a decline in its market value.

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Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank confirm merger talks

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Unions warn merger of two German lenders could put up to 30,000 jobs at risk

Deutsche Bank has confirmed it is in merger talks with rival Commerzbank, putting an end to months of speculation over a potential tie-up that stands to unsettle the German banking landscape.

While the move has been touted as a route to greater profitability for the troubled lenders, unions have warned that the merger could put up to 30,000 jobs at risk.

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Ex-Credit Suisse bankers arrested in $2bn fraud investigation

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Trio arrested in London on US charges as calls grow for debt claim against Mozambique to be dropped

Three former Credit Suisse bankers have been arrested in London on US charges of alleged involvement in a fraud involving $2bn (£1.6bn) in loans to state-owned companies in Mozambique.

Mozambique’s former finance minister, Manuel Chang, and a senior executive from the shipbuilder Privinvest Group, Jean Boustani, have also been arrested in South Africa and New York, respectively, in recent days.

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