Credit Suisse today reported its first full-year loss since 2008 after it took a big impairment charge for its investment banking business under new chief executive Tidjane Thiam.
Shares fell over 9% this morning to hit their lowest level since 1992 after Switzerland's second largest bank also signalled a difficult start to the year.
"Market conditions in January 2016 have remained challenging and we expect markets to remain volatile throughout the remainder of the first quarter of 2016 as macroeconomic issues persist," Thiam, CEO since July, said.
In October Thiam embarked on the biggest overhaul of Credit Suisse in almost a decade.
He has raised fresh equity from investors, increased its bet on wealth management, slimmed down its investment bank and cut jobs.
But just over four months on, many analysts are still unsure how Credit Suisse will hit growth targets, which include more than doubling Asia Pacific pretax income by 2018.
The bank today posted a 2015 net loss of 2.94 billion Swiss francs ($2.92 billion), worse than the median estimate of a 2.12 billion loss in a Reuters poll.
As expected, it booked a goodwill impairment charge of 3.8 billion francs in the fourth quarter as a result of the new strategic direction Thiam is pursuing.
The impairment was mostly related to the acquisition of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette in 2000, it said.
The bank's common equity tier 1 capital ratio of 11.4% also lagged consensus even after a 6 billion franc capital raising last year, it noted.
Rival UBS this week announced its best annual results since 2010 but a surprise outflow of funds and weakening margins at its flagship wealth management business cast a shadow.
Credit Suisse said it had accelerated cost savings so that it had taken action on 34 percent of the measures planned by 2018, or 1.2 billion of the targeted 3.5 billion francs.
However, the bank has not dispelled scepticism about its ability to meet its growth targets.
