NAB to assess potential Credit Suisse private bank buy, if unit is put on the market, executive Michael Saadie says

NAB has signalled the lender’s potential interest in buying Credit Suisse’s local private banking arm, but acquirers are closely assessing mounting fund outflows.

NAB’s Michael Saadie said the major bank would assess a purchase of Credit Suisse’s local private banking arm, were it to hit the market.

National Australia Bank’s private wealth executive Michael Saadie has signalled the lender’s potential interest in buying Credit Suisse’s local private banking arm, should acquirer UBS choose to offload it rather than wade back into that market.

Mr Saadie told The Australian NAB was open to acquisition opportunities across its private banking and JBWere division, even after snapping up about 123 wealth staff as part of the purchase of Citigroup’s domestic retail banking division.

“If you think about the fit for a JBWere with a Credit Suisse (private bank) or any of the others, Crestone or whatever it might be. If they were put on the market, it would be remiss of me and the leadership team not to be lifting the bonnet on it,” he said. “I can’t really comment but they’re (Credit Suisse’s Australian private bank) the sorts of opportunities that I think all players would have to have a look at.”

Banking giant UBS agreed to buy rival Credit Suisse for more than 3bn Swiss francs ($4.8bn) in Switzerland over the weekend, in an all-share rescue transaction that was brokered and pushed by the Swiss government and regulators. There were hopes a rapid-fire transaction would bring calm to banking and financial markets globally, given heightened uncertainty last week about Credit Suisse’s ongoing viability.

The deal has created angst about local jobs cuts in the investment banking and trading divisions at Credit Suisse given UBS’s already large Australian presence, while there are mixed views around whether retaining Credit Suisse’s lucrative local private bank is a priority for UBS.

Mr Saadie more broadly said NAB wanted to stay close to the market and was open to acquisitions to grow in private banking and wealth.

“We certainly are not sitting back on our hands and not looking at these things,” he added.

“We are constantly looking at other areas of growth and how we can actually turbocharge capability, because the road map is actually quite deep and broad for this business at NAB.”

Founded in 2007, Credit Suisse’s Australian private wealth business has an enviable list of ultra-high net worth clients with an estimated $28bn of assets under advice.

Sources close to UBS and Credit Suisse said they did not expect any decisions around the latter’s Australian operations to be made in coming weeks, as granular analysis was conducted offshore around how UBS would execute the deal. The global transaction won’t complete until well into the second half of 2023.

Other sources said hundreds of millions of dollars were already flowing out of Credit Suisse’s local private bank, as customers found new firms to park their money with, making a sale of the business difficult unless it occurred quickly.

“There is money coming out at a rate of knots,” said a representative from a rival firm -- which was the recipient of $500m from several Credit Suisse clients last week -- on the basis of anonymity.

There are fears if customer money outflows from Credit Suisse’s local private bank continue key staff may find new homes to enable them to retain their clients.

Still, another potential buyer of Credit Suisse’s local private bank is LGT Crestone, which was initially spun out of UBS Australia’s private wealth arm under the Crestone banner.

Former UBS executive Mike Chisholm led the buyout of Crestone in 2015-16 and then sold the business to private wealth giant LGT Group in mid-2022.

The Australian approached Crestone for a comment on its potential interest in the Credit Suisse wealth and private banking business but the firm said Mr Chisholm was unavailable, as he was travelling.

LGT Group, which is owned by the 900 year old Princely House of Lichtenstein, has about $461bn of assets under management and was one of Crestone’s biggest clients.

Mr Chisholm, who remains LGT Crestone’s chief executive, told the Australian last year that he was keen to expand the business including looking at potential takeovers in the local market.

At the time, he said he was keeping a close eye on the restructuring of Credit Suisse’s business which was underway.

Melbourne-based Escala Partners, Koda Capital, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management and Shaw and Partners are other notable players in the domestic private wealth sector.