Government-supported buyout wipes out $17bn in Credit Suisse bonds

CHF 16bn AT1 bonds written down

Investors in Credit Suisse’s additional tier one (AT1) bonds will have their holdings wiped out, as the government-supported takeover of the bank by UBS sees the bond value written down to zero.

Revealed yesterday (19 March) as part of the Swiss regulator FINMA's statement approving the merger of the banks, the rewriting of the AT1 bonds took many by surprise. The statement read: "The extraordinary government support will trigger a complete write-down of the nominal value of all AT1 shares of Credit Suisse in the amount of around CHF 16bn, and thus an increase in core capital." UBS agrees to buy Credit Suisse for $3.3bn Alongside this, the Swiss Confederation and Swiss National Bank have offered further liquidity assistance to UBS and Credit Suisse in order to ensure "all ...