By Lisa Jucca
ZURICH (Reuters) - Credit Suisse
But the Swiss bank said 2009 started strongly and all its divisions were showing a profit in the year to date, echoing upbeat comments from rival UBS
Switzerland's second-largest bank said on Wednesday that its net loss for the full year was 8.2 billion francs, in line with what some Swiss newspapers had predicted but worse than the average analyst forecast of 6.3 billion.
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected the bank to turn in a 4 billion franc net loss for the quarter.
Shares in Credit Suisse were down 5.5 percent at 29.14 francs at 0831 GMT, while UBS shares, which gained strongly on Tuesday, rose 0.2 percent to 13.64 francs, compared with a 1.7 percent weaker DJ Stoxx European banking index <.SX7P>.
Credit Suisse had already warned in December that it made a net loss of about 3 billion francs in October and November and would take restructuring charges of about 900 million in the quarter as it moves to cut 5,300 jobs, or 11 percent of the workforce.
Analysts were also anticipating the 538 million franc loss it booked in the quarter for selling part of its fund management arm to Aberdeen Asset Management
Credit Suisse said its investment bank made significant losses in December due to standard hedges becoming ineffective due to market turmoil and as credit spreads widened.
"Results are negative and not much better than UBS in Q4. But there were lots of extraordinary items impacting," West LB analyst Georg Kanders said.
"Toxic assets are now less of an item. They have confirmed they have been significantly reduced.
"Overall I would say that wealth management did much better than UBS. They have also had a positive start in January and just confirmed they have new inflows in the period."
Credit Suisse's results come a day after UBS announced a full-year net loss of nearly 20 billion francs, but also said 2009 had started better and it had stopped outflows from its wealth and asset management units in January.
DELEVERAGING HURTS NET NEW ASSETS
Credit Suisse, like other Swiss banks, has benefited from an exodus of clients from crisis-hit UBS, which said on Tuesday it had net new money outflows of 58.2 billion francs from its wealth management unit in the fourth quarter.
Credit Suisse said its private banking business remained solidly profitable in 2008 and recorded net new assets of 50.9 billion francs, which CEO Dougan said "underscored the trust that clients place" in the company.
But it only recorded net new assets of 2 billion francs in the fourth quarter, as strong net client inflows of 13.8 billion francs were offset by deleveraging of client portfolios.
"Inflows in the private bank look disappointing. A good aspect is that they have said January was positive, but the first impression is that the report is weak," said Citibank analyst Jeremy Sigee.
Credit Suisse said it had achieved about 50 percent of its targeted job cuts to bring headcount down to 47,800 by the end of 2008. It reiterated a target of paring its investment bank to 17,500 staff by the end of 2009 from 19,700 at the end of 2008.
"While our full-year results are clearly disappointing, we entered 2009 with a very strong capital position, a robust business model, a clear strategy and well-positioned businesses," Chief Executive Brady Dougan said in a statement.
Credit Suisse said it had made combined writedowns of 3.2 billion francs on risky assets in the fourth quarter, bringing total writedowns since mid-2007 to 14.1 billion francs.
It also said it had suffered a trading loss of 6.7 billion francs in the fourth quarter.
Slides for a presentation from Credit Suisse showed the bank had trimmed some of its most troublesome assets.
It said had cut to 8.8 billion Swiss francs its exposure to commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS). Its exposure to leveraged finance, another problematic asset class, had dropped to 0.9 billion francs.
The total for risky assets in investment banking was down to 11.6 billion francs from 27 billion francs at the end of September and 99 billion francs at the start of the credit crisis at end-September 2007.
(Additional reporting by Martin de Sa'Pinto, Emma Thomasson, editing by Will Waterman, John Stonestreet)
