Swiss UBS Bank to take over Credit Suisse for $3.24bln in shares
Swiss National Bank (SNB) and Switzerland's Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) brokered the acquisition deal to help people re-establish confidence in the Swiss banking sector.
UBS, Switzerland's biggest bank, agreed to acquire global investment bank Credit Suisse for over $2 billion, according to the Financial Times on Sunday.
UBS' original offer to buy Credit Suisse was $1 billion, reported the newspaper. Swiss authorities were considering changing laws to bypass a shareholder vote on this deal in order to speed up the acquisition.
Swiss authorities plan to amend a law requiring a shareholder vote on the matter, in an attempt to secure the deal before markets reopen on Monday.
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Swiss laws typically require UBS to engage in consultations with its shareholders over six weeks before making an offer, however, the emergency at hand pushed the government to skip the consultation period and a shareholder vote.
In addition, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) and Switzerland's Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) brokered the acquisition deal, reported the Financial Times earlier in the day while citing sources.
SNB and FINMA attempted to ease up the acquisition in an effort to win back people's confidence in the Swiss banking sector.
The newspaper stated that the Swiss central bank also agreed to offer a $100 billion liquidity line to UBS, as part of the deal.
Credit Suisse's share price took a hit by nearly 30% on Wednesday. This sparked concerns about the liquidity crunch.
The share price plunge came followed b the recent collapse of several US financial institutions, such as Silicon Valley Bank.
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Credit Suisse announced the sale of more than $3 billion in assets on Thursday. They also opened a 50 billion Swiss franc credit line with the Swiss central bank, valued at $54 billion.
This all came as an attempt to stabilize the situation and return the confidence of investors and clients.