Switzerland preparing emergency measures for UBS’ takeover of Credit Suisse: Report

The Swiss Nation­al Bank (SNB) and Switzerland’s finan­cial reg­u­la­tor report­ed­ly believe that the acqui­si­tion of invest­ment bank Cred­it Suisse by UBS, Switzer­land’s largest bank, is the “only option” to pre­vent a “col­lapse in con­fi­dence” in Cred­it Suisse.

Accord­ing to a March 18 Finan­cial Times report cit­ing three peo­ple famil­iar with the sit­u­a­tion, Switzer­land is prepar­ing to use “emer­gency mea­sures” to accel­er­ate the takeover by UBS of Cred­it Suisse, in an effort to final­ize the acqui­si­tion before “mar­kets open on Monday.”

It was not­ed that the emer­gency mea­sures set in place would allow the deal to pro­ceed with­out a share­hold­er vote, bypass­ing the usu­al Swiss reg­u­la­tions that require a “six-week” con­sul­ta­tion peri­od for share­hold­ers “to con­sult on the acquisition.”

It was stat­ed that the SNB and the Swiss Finan­cial Mar­ket Super­vi­so­ry Author­i­ty (FINMA) are work­ing to “reach reg­u­la­to­ry agree­ment” by Sat­ur­day night, hav­ing report­ed­ly told inter­na­tion­al coun­ter­parts that “they regard a deal” with UBS as the “only option” to pre­vent a “col­lapse in con­fi­dence” in Cred­it Suisse.

This is a devel­op­ing sto­ry, and fur­ther infor­ma­tion will be added as it becomes available.