After Credit Suisse has posted a net loss of $5.83 billion Swiss francs or $5.8 billion in the fourth quarter, the bank announced that it will be pruning around 4,000 jobs to reduce its operating costs.
The financial institution, in a statement issued on Thursday also clarified that the reported loss includes "substantial charges which are not reflective of our underlying business performance."
The net loss of the giant Swiss bank is significant considering that it only posted a net profit of 691 million Swiss francs one year ago. Credit Suisse also reported pretax quarterly loss of 6.4 billion francs
This pretax loss includes a 4.8 billion-franc impairment charged incurred by the bank when it acquired the investment bank of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette in 2000.
The net loss is the bank's first full-year loss since 2008 and caused its share price to fall exerting additional pressure to Tidjane Thiam, Credit Suisse Chief Executive.
On Thursday, the bank's share price dropped over 12 percent and hit their lowest level since 1992. CS stock price has gone down 32 percent at the start of the year.
Thiam, who took the helms of the bank in July, stated that he would continue with his plans to concentrate more on wealth management in developing economies and reduce costs (mainly jobs) in the investment bank, even with the uneasy start of the year.
"We have a clear strategy, clearly we are implementing it in difficult markets and our outlook for the first quarter remains very cautious," said Thiam.
"(We have) very unique market conditions and they are challenging, but fundamentally we are maintaining the objectives and the targets we have presented," he added.
Thiam also said that the job cuts will mean a saving of 1.2 billion Swiss francs per year. Credit Suisse outlines its plans in October for job reductions as part of its efforts to save the bank 3.5 billion Swiss francs in operating costs.
