Results season is now upon us, and it’s been a mixed bag of announcements.

Swiss giant Credit Suisse has reported a pre-tax income (PTI) of CHF803m (US$882m) for the third quarter of 2020, down 30% year-on-year.

Global investment banking revenues of US$2.4 billion were up 12% year-on-year, with fixed income sales & trading revenues, at US$921m, increasing by 10%. Equity sales & trading revenues of US$588m were up five percent from the prior year period, reflecting higher trading volumes in the US and Asia. At the end of the quarter, debt securities on the group’s balance sheet for trading assets and liabilities were worth CHF69.3 billion (end December 2019: CHF 66.9 billion)

The UK’s Barclays suffered a 30.8% quarterly decrease in its structured products sales volumes during the third quarter of 2020 (to US$1.844 billion), SRP data shows. The bank has now slid to third place in the SRP US issuer group league table from first place in Q2 20.

Barclays’ net operating income fell by 16% to £12.5 billion (US$16.8 billion) in Q3 20 from £14.9 billion in the third quarter of 2019 while total income saw a three percent rise to £16.8 billion from Q3 19.

For its part, Goldman Sachs has seen structured product issuance shoot up to 726 (US$2.1 billion) in the third quarter of 2020 from 595 products valued at US$1.56m during the previous quarter, SRP data shows.

Total net revenues stand at US$10.78 billion compared with US$13.3 billion in Q2 20, a 19% drop – this figure does represent a 30% rise from the bank’s Q3 19 figure of US$8.3 billion.

The bank’s investment banking segment reported net revenues of US$1.97 billion for the third quarter of 2020 reflecting a 26% plummet from its Q2 20 figure US$2.66 billion though a 7% increase from its Q3 19 value US$1.84 billion.

Over in Japan, Nomura Holdings has posted a net income of JPY67.6 billion (US$649.1m) for the second quarter of FY20/21 which ended on 30 September, a 51% decrease year-on-year (YoY), as its retail growth was offset by the loss from asset management and wholesale segments. Net revenue during the 2Q dropped by 20% quarter-on-quarter (four percent YoY) while non-interest expenses rose by two percent to JPY285.4 billion, or 12% YoY.

The profit attributable to the parent company of Daiwa Securities Group dropped by 13.1% to JPY15.2 billion in the quarter ended 30 September, or by 11.9% YoY. This led to a profit of JPY32.8 billion for the six months from April to September – a 1.7% decrease YoY.  

It’s also been a busy week for people moves at some of the major global players in the market. Bank of America announced the appointment of Jeff Tannenbaum as head of global capital markets for Europe, Middle East and Africa (Emea) on 1 October. This newly created regional role aligns the structure of the bank’s GCM business globally across the Americas, Asia Pacific and Emea.

Structured products specialist boutique HPC Investment Partners (HPC IP) has appointed David Zajdman as head of sales & institutional solutions. He has joined the structured products specialist boutique with the mandate to move the business forward, following the departure of the three founders of HPC IP, Pierre Yves Breton , Jordan Sfez and Arthur Texeira, earlier this year.

JP Morgan Chase & Co. has appointed Francesco Lavatelli to head equity capital markets for Asia Pacific. Lavatelli, who has been with the firm since 2002, has headed the debt capital markets division in Asia ex-Japan as well as leading the Asia Pacific Corporate Equity Derivatives business for the last few years. In this new role, Lavatelli will continue to lead the Asia Pacific corporate equity derivatives business. He takes over Daniel Darahem who became senior country officer of Brazil earlier this year.

Finally, Elite Alfred Berg (EAB) has joined the ranks of distributors in Finland, after launching two structured products so far this year, in collaboration with Danske Bank and BNP Paribas, respectively.

“The target group for these public offerings were primarily our private banking clients,” said Toni Iivonen (above), head of investments, EAB.

The company intends to widen its offering to cover its institutional clients.

Image credit: Wikimedia