Credit Suisse crisis: Meet Dixit Joshi, the Indian-origin CFO

Credit Suisse’s share price traded at CHF 0.78, plunging by 58.15%. However, in the early trade, the stock nosedived by a whopping 64.52% and even touched an intraday low of CHF 0.66.

Chief executive officer of Credit Suisse, Ulrich Koerner, had appointed Dixit Joshi as the bank’s CFO in October 2022. He took over from David Mathers, who had been the CFO since 2010.

Here are things to know about him:

1. Dixit Joshi served as the Group Treasurer of Deutsche Bank for five years before joining Credit Suisse. His positions included leading institutional client group debt, listed derivatives and markets clearing, global prime finance as well as Asia Pacific equities.
2. The 51-year-old later joined Credit Suisse for the first time in 1995. According to the official website of the bank, he was associated with its work in New York and London till 2003.
3. He started off his three decade-long career with the Standard Bank of South Africa in 1992. 
4. He served as chief of Equity Derivatives and later headed EMEA Equities at Barclays Capital from 2003-2010.
5. He was born in Durban in 1971, Joshi studied Bachelor of Science degree in Actuarial Science and Statistics at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. 

On Sunday, both UBS and Credit Suisse announced the takeover deal. UBS will be the surviving entity. The Zurich-headquartered bank will acquire Credit Suisse for CHF 3 billion (approximately $3.25 billion).

The move comes after Swiss National Bank’s plan to give a 50 billion francs loan to Credit Suisse failed to ease the dangling confidence of investors. Swiss Federal Department of Finance, the Swiss National Bank, and FINMA asked both UBS and Credit Suisse for a merger agreement to restore confidence in the economy and banking system.

Under the merger, all shareholders of Credit Suisse will get 1 equity share in UBS for their 22.48 shares in Credit Suisse. This exchange ratio reflects a merger consideration of CHF 3 billion for all shares in Credit Suisse.