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March 19 () –
The Swiss bank UBS would have agreed to buy its main national rival, Credit Suisse, for 2,000 million dollars (1,872 million euros) to avoid the collapse of the financial institution, as reported by the newspaper ‘The Financial Times’.
The deal would involve paying just over 50 Swiss franc cents per share, ie still well below Friday’s price of 1.86 Swiss francs.
The agreement could be signed this Sunday night, before the Asian markets open. Neither UBS nor Credit Suisse nor the Swiss authorities have confirmed this information at this time.
The main Swiss bank would have presented an initial offer of 1,000 million dollars that would have been rejected as too low and harmful to shareholders, as reported by Bloomberg.
In this situation, the Swiss authorities had considered intervening and nationalizing the bank, the second in the country, an issue dealt with in a Council of Ministers held urgently on Saturday.
On Sunday the government met again, which has summoned the press to an “important” press conference for this same Sunday. Swiss media have reported that the government has called the parties to a meeting at 6:00 p.m. to report on the process before publishing the result.
The acquisition of UBS presents multiple complexities. The financial entity is asking the Government to assume certain legal changes and possible future losses. The Swiss Finance Ministry has declined to comment.
For example, Swiss regulations require a six-week deadline to consult shareholders about an acquisition, so legislative changes are being considered to avoid this delay and facilitate the merger of the two main Swiss banks.
Credit Suisse has been in crisis for several months due to repeated scandals and the situation has worsened in the last week, in which it has lost a quarter of its stock market value. So the Swiss National Bank came to the rescue by providing up to 50 billion francs in cash.
