Novartis Raises Forecasts; Covid Mortality Revised Upwards; Credit Suisse Reveals Results

News For 25 April 2023

Some welcome news from local employer Novartis.  Of late, the Basel based enterprise mostly made the headlines for additional rounds of lay-offs, however today's news was considerably cheerier.  It seems the company has had a stellar economic quarter since the start of 2023, and has revised its estimates of annual performance upwards across most of its operations.  CEO Vas Narasimhan said focus on US markets paid off especially well during the latest period, where sales growth was strongest.  Plans for the spin-off of the Sandoz generic pharmaceutical unit are still expected to take place in the second half of the year.

**********

The Swiss Federal Statistics Office released figures last week indicating a more precise count of the number of people that died in 2021 where the principal cause was the Coronavirus.  Initial estimates had placed the nationwide figure at 4500.  However, the final tally of 5957 people made Covid the third most common cause of death in Switzerland behind cardiovascular disease and cancer in 2021.

**********

In its first public filings since having been acquired by UBS, Credit Suisse released its financial results which reflect its condition in its final tumultuous days.  Apparently, panicky clients had withdrawn 60 billion Swiss Francs worth of assets from the bank in the first three months of 2023, 28 billion of which seems to have found its way into the coffers of UBS.  Adding insult to injury, it seems just as the bank was falling off the cliff, it managed to generate the largest profit in its corporate history of 14 billion Francs.  Alas, the profits were not enough to stop the bleeding of assets, and forced the bank into a hastily arranged merger with its rival in March.