Credit Suisse said on Wednesday first-quarter net profit rose on the year due in part to its investment bank, and flagged a cash dividend.
"We're proposing at the AGM later this week a 0.75 total dividend of scrip and cash but we're not talking about exactly what the dividend will be but we're accruing for a meaningful dividend depending on results for the rest of the year," Brady Dougan CEO at Credit Suisse told CNBC.
The Swiss bank's net profit of 1.303 billion Swiss francs ($1.38 billion) from 44 million year-ago beat analyst expectations, which averaged 1.255 billion francs in a Reuters poll.
The profit rise was so sharp largely because Credit Suisse booked 1.5 billion francs in own debt charges against the year-ago quarter.
"The economies around the world, on the markets obviously you have volatility and ups and downs but we feel constructive about things. In April market conditions are pretty similar to the first quarter so things are constructive and the business model is resilient. The first quarter results show that the strategy is working and we saw very strong returns and we think that will be durable under different markets conditions for the rest of the year, Dougan added.
The Investment banking unit has been under more strain which Dougan put down to a comparison with a "very strong fourth quarter". "The advisory number was a little bit weaker versus competitors and a lot of that was because we had a very strong fourth quarter so I think we up-fronted some of our revenues M&A into the fourth quarter with some spilling into the first quarter," he added.
