Figures don't add up at Credit Suisse

CREDIT Suisse has had to mark down its full-year profits by Swfr200m (£86m) because it got its numbers wrong.

The error comes from the German unit of the bank's Winterthur arm, marking an embarrassing first year in charge for the insurer's chief executive Lenny Fischer, who joined in January last year.

It means 2003 profits at Europe's 10th biggest bank were Swfr5bn, not the Swfr5.2bn it said it had made last month, as fourth-quarter net income was lowered 16.7% to Swfr1bn from the original Swfr1.2bn.

The revision will also put a cloud over the final few months in office for Credit Suisse's highly paid American chief financial officer Philip Ryan, who said earlier this month he was stepping down in August after five difficult years trying to turn round the bank's fortunes.

Credit Suisse, co-headed by Oswald Gr¸bel and John Mack, injected $2.5bn (£1.38bn) into Winterthur in 2002 after the insurer's huge investment losses which were largely behind the group's record loss of Swfr3.4bn.

Both the division and the whole bank moved back into profit last year.

DBV-Winterthur, the German subsidiary, had, the bank said, made a single inputting error relating to its calculation of dividends to policyholders.

Fourth-quarter figures had been seen by auditors KPMG, who have not yet signed off the full-year accounts, a Credit Suisse spokesman said today.