Dutch central bank chief Klaas Knot said he’s been left wondering why the Swiss allowed shareholders to get any money out of Credit Suisse Group AG, and will seek answers at future meetings with counterparts.
(Bloomberg) — Dutch central bank chief Klaas Knot said he’s been left wondering why the Swiss allowed shareholders to get any money out of Credit Suisse Group AG, and will seek answers at future meetings with counterparts.
Knot, who is also chair of the Basel-based Financial Stability Board, praised authorities but said he’s curious on why the takeover deal didn’t write down the bank’s stock.
“They deserve, I think, a lot of respect for swiftness,” he told reporters at a briefing in Amsterdam on Thursday. “But there is this open issue, open question as to why did they fully write off the AT1 without actually also making sure that the value of the equities would also be written down to zero.”
The terms of UBS Group AG’s purchase of Credit Suisse caused financial-market jitters because of the precedent it created in reordering the creditor hierarchy for the deal.
“There’s been a statement explaining by the authorities why they wrote down the value of the AT1,” Knot said. “I’m actually interested in the question why they did not also make sure that the value of equity would be written down. And that’s a question that we will have to take up with the Swiss authorities at some point when we will meet them again at FSB, IMF gatherings.”
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