Swiss banking crisis: UBS is to take over Credit Suisse for two billion francs

The Swiss government will officially provide information on Sunday evening, but something has already leaked out: Credit Suisse is now actually to be taken over by UBS in order to prevent a collapse. According to Swiss media reports, banks, politicians and authorities have agreed on a purchase price of around two billion francs.

In the afternoon there was still talk of one billion francs. On Friday, Credit Suisse was worth around eight billion francs on the stock exchange.

According to reports, Switzerland wants to change laws to prevent shareholders from voting on the purchase and the price. It should definitely be before the stock exchanges open on Monday (which will be the case in Asia in a few hours), in order to prevent the crisis from spreading to the international banking world.

According to the “Financial Times”, the share package between the two largest Swiss banks should be signed on Sunday evening.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Swiss National Bank (SNB) is helping UBS with the takeover. She offered UBS around $100 billion in liquidity, according to people familiar with the matter.