‘Credit Suisse already had problems in 2015’

BLOOMBERG 

UBS Group AG Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sergio Ermotti, who’s overseeing the takeover of Credit Suisse Group AG in a government-brokered rescue, said he saw problems at UBS’s smaller competitor as early as 2015.
“UBS was very well positioned from 2015, we had done our homework after the financial crisis,” Ermotti said in an interview with the Schweiz am Wochenende newspaper. “We always looked at what opportunities there were for us to grow organically and inorganically. It was clear to me that something wasn’t going well at CS.”
Asked if he already had a takeover plan in mind for Credit Suisse at the time, Ermotti smiled and stayed silent, according to the newspaper. He spoke following a media forum in Lucerne, where he gave his strongest indication yet that the Swiss government and central bank will avoid taking a financial hit from the emergency rescue.
Ermotti rejected the notion that outgoing CEO Ulrich Koerner contributed to the collapse of Credit Suisse and wasn’t suited for a senior role at the merged institution.