Credit Suisse’s Commodities Value-at-Risk Fell 87% in Quarter
February 09, 2012, 1:20 PM ESTBy Maria Kolesnikova
Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Credit Suisse Group AG, Switzerland’s second-biggest bank, said its average daily risk-taking in commodities fell 87 percent in the fourth quarter and it’s reducing some of its commodities business.
Value at risk, a measure of how much the bank estimates it may lose in a single day, dropped to 3 million francs ($3.3 million) in the fourth quarter from 23 million francs a year earlier, the Zurich-based company said in a statement on its website. The figure was down 57 percent from the third quarter.
Last year was the worst for commodities since 2008 as the Standard & Poor’s GSCI total return gauge of 24 raw materials fell 1.2 percent. Glencore International Plc, the world’s biggest commodity trader, had an $8 million loss in its agricultural business last year as cotton demand declined.
Credit Suisse will “downscale” or leave so-called long- dated unsecured trades in global rates, emerging markets and commodities, the company said in the statement today. Commodities trading had a loss of 14 million francs compared with revenue of 192 million francs a year earlier, it said.
--Editors: Claudia Carpenter, John Deane
To contact the reporter on this story: Maria Kolesnikova in London at mkolesnikova@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net
