LONDON â€" Credit Suisse, one of Switzerland’s largest banks, said Thursday that profit in the second quarter rose by a third, thanks to higher earnings at its investment banking operation.
Profit rose to 1.04 billion Swiss francs, or $1 billion, in the three months that ended June 30, from 788 million francs in the same period last year. That compares with a 1.017 billion-franc forecast by a group of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.
Credit Suisse is joining Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street rivals in reporting improved results for the second quarter, helped by a lift in client activity in sales and trading and investment banking. Goldman said this month that its second-quarter earnings had doubled, beating analyst expectations.
Brady W. Dougan, Credit Suisse’s chief executive, has been cutting costs, but unlike its Swiss rival UBS, decided against scaling back some parts of the securities operation. Some analysts were concerned that the capital requirements imposed by new financial regulation would make it almost impossible for Credit Suisse’s investment bank to be successful.
But many investors have recently joined Mr. Dougan in seeing the bank’s good performance at the beginning of this year as a sign that the firm’s strategy was working.
‘‘Our business model is performing well and we continue to make progress in reducing our cost base and balance sheet,’’ Mr. Dougan said in a news release Thursday. Credit Suisse said it was on track to achieve its aim to cut 4.4 billion francs in costs by the end of 2015.
Mr. Dougan has said that he expected the investment banking operation to increase its contribution to group earnings once markets recover. He is also betting that the private banking and wealth-management operations would provide a lift to earnings once the global economic environment improves.
Uncertainty about interest rates and when central banks would exit their economic stimulus plans have led to ‘‘increased market volatility and reduced client activity,’’ Mr. Dougan said. But he added that ‘‘more recently we have seen signs of stabilization in our major markets.’’
‘‘In the longer term, the transition to higher rates will benefit our business,’’ he said.
The investment banking division reported a pretax profit of 754 million francs in the quarter, up from 314 million francs in the same period last year. Revenue rose because of higher income from underwriting of share and bond sales and greater activity in its equity and fixed-income sales and trading business.
Credit Suisse last year combined its money-managing units and bought Morgan Stanley’s wealth-management operations in Britain, Italy and Dubai. Greater collaboration among the bank’s units generated 1.2 billion francs of revenue in the second quarter, or about 17 percent of the group’s revenues, Credit Suisse said.
Pretax profit at the private banking and wealth management fell to 917 million francs in the three months through June from 977 million francs in the period last year because of low interest rates. Revenue at the unit remained unchanged at 3.4 billion francs. The unit had 7.6 billion francs in net new assets in the second quarter.
