Credit Suisse gets it wrong again
SWISS banking giant Credit Suisse has got its numbers wrong for the second time in barely a month, this time adding back a total of Swfr419m (£180m) to three years of profits.
The latest errors will come as a severe embarrassment for Credit Suisse's operational headquarters in Zurich, the commercial epicentre of a country which takes pride in a long history of international banking sophistication.
Delivering a restated set of 2003 profits using US accounting rules for the first time, Credit Suisse, co-headed by Oswald Grubel and John Mack, also restated its 2000, 2001 and 2002 US generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) results after identifying 'certain errors'.
The impact of the corrections was a reduction of Swfr232m in 2002 net losses, a cut of Swfr28m in 2001's net loss and a gain of Swfr 159m in net profit in 2000.
Only last month Credit Suisse had to mark down its profits by Swfr200m in 2003 to Swfr5.2bn after discovering a single inputting error from its German unit of the bank's Winterthur arm.
A Credit Suisse spokeswoman said today's revisions were only 'a few minor mistakes'.
The latest errors cover five areas of accounting, including how to calculate group-wide share-based pay, provisions of future dividends to insurance policyholders and pension expenses.
