Who would acquire CS US IB division?
if the US banking arm of CS is acquired by another bank, who would it most likely be bought by? Would it make sense for a BB firm like GS to acquire to obtain CS levfin/FSG platform which is top of street? Or does it make more sense for a bank like Truist to acquire to expand IB capabilities.
Not sure which makes more sense since I am assuming acquiring the IB arm in US would be cheap for any other bank either way. Could also be a forced merger in which case who knows what bank would be involved.
bump
no chance you're bumping this if you work at Oaktree - answers are obvious to anyone who's worked at US banks
Oaktree is on the phone with CS levfin every single day
Hello there! We are standing by to step into CS' revolver holds
Jefferies could be a contender. I mean they've already hired a lot of CS professionals, why not buy the whole IB division to seal the deal LMFAOOOO
Citi as well. Lots of senior folks went there
Why when you can just poach talent and not have to take any balance sheet risk if there is any.
Agreed on this. Lots of CS past success is balance sheet driven, so why not throw cash at MDs instead. It’s a people business
Head of IB at Wells is ex-CS guy so wouldn’t be surprised
Could also be a commercial bank like company looking to expand into IB like CapitalOne or US Bank. CapitalOne bought out TripleTree IB and has been looking to build out its own M&A practice
CapitalOne is the most likely, they specifically mention it as part of their strategy. Didn’t they buy KippsDeSanto as well?
Yeah
Maybe the Canadians
Right like an RBC or BMO
RBC scooped up a number of CS people. Might make sense as a flex on TD’s recent acquisition of Cowen
Probably dilutive for a top bank like GS or MS to take on the entire team, especially with people leaving, and its balance sheet given the lower profitability, makes more sense for a bank where it would move the strategic needle significantly
I would love to see GS/MS/JPM acquire EVR/Centerview/PJT. Rainmaker EB partners with the backing of a fortress balance sheet would be amazing to see.
Wells Fargo
Hopefully it will be Wells Fargo First Boston and not just Wells Fargo. Or better yet First Boston Wells Fargo (ala JP Morgan Chase, notice JP Morgan comes first despite being the acquiree).
Yeah bc Chase JP Morgan sounds horrible
What is CS IB worth asset wise? Wells is at $1.88Tn as per their latest 10Q. I'm assuming CS IB would be way below the remaining $120Bn if it's just IB advisory. Would it include CS's securities too?
Wells makes the most sense but would still surprise me
Lol this girl in my class said CS and UBS should merge. When I asked her why, she said "they're both Swiss BB banks" and provided no other rationale.
There has actually been speculation on this for years... all the way back to pre-08 and some chatter advisors had been hired at one point
Sure, and I wouldn't doubt that, but maybe her backing up her thoughts with something more than "they're both Swiss BBs" would be more compelling.
Did you share your perspective, or did you run to anonymously post on an internet website and badmouth your classmate
I did share my perspective with her and the other member in my group (who was curious to hear what happened but didn't jump the gun like the first group member I was initially referring to). And as per your smart-ass comment - yes, I also posted on an anonymous forum, as you can clearly fucking see.
When Barclays bought Lehman, they paid almost nothing for the actual business. Nearly all of it was for the building and for the securities on the books.
That makes sense to me because as bank leaders are fond of saying, the assets go down the escalator every night. There isn't a lot to buy.
Main reason Barclays paid something (not much) for the business was that there was strategic value in quickly becoming a real player in the US. I don't know which foreign banks are looking to do that. Nomura and SMTB are pretty far along I think, but maybe they'd have some interest.
Maybe another European bank with a weak US presence like BNP?
Seems like a good one
Lots of people here saying Wells Fargo…
Not sure how that would happen as they are under an asset cap
You are not acquiring the firm, Wells would acquire the MD's as referenced below. CS human capital is the asset here, not CS the firm
No one.
You just need to poach high performing MDs.
MDs will bring along high quality AN/AS with them to fill the ranks.
If anyone would buy CS it would be UBS and it would be for the synergies in wealth management and asset management not IB. - UBS #1 in global wealth assets acquiring #3 in global wealth assets with lot's of overlap in geographies. Merging wealth and asset management platforms should provide plenty of synergies. The asset mgmt. and wealth businesses are stickier and less volatile. Both of these businesses benefit immensely from scale. IB was only 30% of UBS op income in 2021 in a year where the department obviously was overearning so it's not as big as you probably think to the overall company as wealth/asset mgmt were most of the rest of op income. Probably makes sense to consolidate both IB's and ER's into each other taking best teams/aspects from each. Obviously can cut a lot of back office and close duplicative office. HQ's in Switzerland are next door to each other and Swiss execs are probably friendly with each other, Zurich is not a big place, metro size puts it just in top 40 US metros so the execs and Swiss likely want to keep as many jobs in Zurich as possible which has better chance of happening this way.... I think it makes sense qualitatively but I haven't done a deep dive.
I agree that UBS makes most sense. Lots of wealth management synergies globally, and can create a streamlined IB focused on FSG/M&A/LevFin with big cuts to sales and trading functions. Swiss government has been encouraging the merger for some time — would create one giant Swiss banking behemoth
Hasn't the stated point of this restructuring from CS execs. been to streamline the business and focus on that WM business though? I'm not sure that selling outright is as much of a focus for CS: it may not be at a stage where management is ready to throw the towel.
They will just poach the MDs. No bank would consider buying out a balance sheet given current market conditions.
Literally this
My guess is UBS/HSBC
For what its worth, Bloomberg already posted an article about sources telling them Apollo and BNP are rumored to be looking at CS’ structured products group
RIP poor person who has to diligence something like that.
Bloomberg has turned into the New York Post so that news article is a nonstarter.
Ironically, NYPost actually gets a lot of Apollo related scoops for some reason, so you’re actually saying it’s probably pretty high quality in this instance.
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