An activist hedge fund backed by a former top Credit Suisse executive wants to break up the bank

Gaël de BoissardYouTube

Swiss hedge fund RBR Capital Advisors will announce this week a plan to split apart Credit Suisse, the Financial Times reported Monday.

The firm is proposing to split Credit Suisse into three parts: an investment bank modeled after First Boston, which Credit Suisse acquired in 1989, a wealth management group, and an asset manager.

It’s being spearheaded by Gaël de Boissard, who joined Credit Suisse in 2001, and eventually served as co-head of investment banking before leaving in December 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile.

His plan is largely a rebuttal to disappointing performance under CEO Tidjane Thiam, who took over in 2015. In the almost two years since, the bank’s stock price has declined by 20%.

Activist investors have targeted high-profile companies like GE and ADP recently, but have largely avoided financial institutions, the FT reports.

You can read the full story on the Financial Times here.

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