Credit Suisse CEO says Global Markets revenue slowed in February; shares fall

[March 22, 2018]  ZURICH (Reuters) - Revenues in Credit Suisse's <CSGN.S> Global Markets trading division have fallen since mid-February, Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam said on Thursday, helping spur a drop in the Swiss bank's shares.

Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam of Swiss bank Credit Suisse awaits a news conference to present the company's full-year results, in Zurich, Switzerland, February 14, 2018. REUTERS/Moritz Hager

"Nothing to be alarmed about. It's going to be a profitable quarter but more slow after six weeks than in the full year," Thiam said at a Morgan Stanley conference in London.

The CEO of Switzerland's second-biggest bank stressed that finances of the group, in the final stages of a major restructuring, are now less impacted by developments in its Global Markets investment banking division.

"Global Markets doesn't drive our economics and won't drive our economics," he said. "It doesn't move the needle."

Shares fell as much as 3.3 percent following the publication of slides accompanying Thiam's presentation, which showed Global Market revenues roughly in line with prior-year levels during the first 11 weeks.

On Wednesday, Thiam had said the bank was seeing a "very confused" quarter.

(Reporting by Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi, editing by John Miller and Michael Shields)

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