Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam joined hosts Stephanie Ruhle and David Westin on Bloomberg TV’s new flagship morning program, Bloomberg <GO>, where he responded to a Swiss newspaper report on bonus cuts. Thian also spoke about strategies at the bank and the economy.
On whether the Swiss media report that Credit Suisse may cut bonuses as much as 60% is true, Thiam said: “The short answer is no. That’s a very speculative story and I just won’t comment on that…Bonuses will be set at the end of the year.”
Thiam also said he sees the risk of a “traumatic event” in global markets once the current period of low interest rates comes to an end: “It’s quite likely that there will be at the end of all this period a relatively traumatic event… we have to position ourselves quite defensively.”
He added: “Every time you see in markets, when you go from a high-rate environment to a low-rate environment or from a low to a high-rate environment, experience shows that a number of people are caught unprepared. That is likely to happen again.”
