Credit Suisse has been skiing uphill.
The storied financial giant is in its last year of a three-year overhaul and is already seeing dividends from making painful and difficult changes.
Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam isn’t looking for a personal payoff from the improvements. Thiam and other Credit Suisse executives agreed last year to cut bonuses. Other employees shouldn’t think about big raises, either. Credit Suisse employees “should not expect anything spectacular, but something fair,” Thiam told Bloomberg.
Credit Suisse entities made a fair amount of stock trades in the fourth quarter, including double-digit percentage changes in positions in General Electric (ticker: GE), Sprint (S), Sirius XM Holdings (SIRI) and International Business Machines ( IBM) and Alibaba Group Holding (BABA).
The bank’s overall ownership of GE rose by 4 million shares in the fourth quarter, ending 2017 at 21 million shares. We can see why. The shares looked cheap, particularly late in the year as they slipped to multiyear lows, ending 2017 with a 43% drop, excluding dividends. The conglomerate’s stock, unfortunately, has continued to melt like raclette cheese; shares are down 17% so far in 2018 through Thursday’s close at $14.36. When the shares were at just under $15 in February, we said they could fall another 10% or more.
Disappointment that Sprint couldn’t reach an agreement to combine with T-Mobile US (TMUS)contributed to Sprint shares ending 2017 with a 30% loss. It didn’t help to see Sprint executives selling stock even as top holder Softbank continued buying the stock. According to S&P Capital IQ, Softbank now holds just under 85% of the telecommunications-services provider. Sprint hit its lows for the year in the fourth quarter, which was when Credit Suisse raised its stake by 19% to 2.5 million shares by buying 395,100 more shares. They have slipped 11% so far this year.
Satellite-radio firm Sirius was attuned to the market last year; its shares rose 21% in 2017, just edging out the 20% gain in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. Investors remain receptive to Sirius, as shares have tacked on another 20% so far in 2018. Credit Suisse bought 243,800 more Sirius shares in the fourth quarter to end the year with 2.3 million shares. Meanwhile, Sirius’s own investment in Pandora Media (P) hasn’t quite panned out yet.
Credit Suisse bought 264,200 more IBM shares in the fourth quarter, raising its stake to 2.1 million shares. An investor meeting a year ago produced mixed reactions and also seemed to preface a year of decline as shares went on to fall 4% in 2017. But IBM shares have already erased the red from last year, rising 5% so far in 2018 to $159.61. We called it a bargain in November and we noted one analyst saw the stock going to $192, 20% higher from here.
The post Selling Alibaba, Buying GE, Sirius, Sprint, IBM appeared first on Statii News.
source http://news.statii.co.uk/selling-alibaba-buying-ge-sirius-sprint-ibm/
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