Wealthy Asian clients bolstered Credit Suisse's profits in Asia, even as income from advising big corporates and underwriting their stock and bond issues slipped from the end of last year.

The Swiss bank's pretax profit in Asia surged 59 percent to 234 million Swiss francs ($239.1 million) in the first three months of the year, Credit Suisse said in a statement on Wednesday.

The Asian unit's private banking revenue rose by 11 percent, which Credit Suisse said represents the highest quarterly revenue to date. The unit benefited from a surge in transactional revenue – meaning clients traded more – as well as restructuring expenses falling away. 

The wealth unit is working to bulk up paid advisory services – a coveted source of revenue for banks because they are recurring and regular –to underpin future profits.

Sluggish Hiring 

The healthy wealth result in Asia result comes amid a 16 percent rise in overall net profit, underpinned by Credit Suisse's wealth arm in the rest of the world including Switzerland. The region's private bankers, who are led by Francesco de Ferrari, won 6.2 billion francs in net new assets in the first three months.

The result masked an uptick in provisions for future legal cases, which fueled a 17 percent rise in spending. Credit Suisse didn't elaborate on the reasons for the litigation spending at its «wealth management and connected» unit, which includes advisory, underwriting, and financing. Regional head Helman Sitohang told journalists the spike isn't due to a specific item: «we are just being very prudent.»

The result comes as Credit Suisse, which in February said it had cooled on a hard hiring target of 800 private bankers in the region, added just 10 new advisors in the quarter. The bank now employs 600 relationship managers in Asia.

«Bad Bank» Assets

In total, the bank now manages 199.1 billion francs in the region, which is 2.3 billion francs more than the last quarter of 2017. This is thanks to the fresh money, from Chinese, Japanese and Southeast Asian clients, but also a 1.1 billion franc transfer from Credit Suisse's «bad bank».

By contrast, Credit Suisse suffered a 17 percent sequential drop in advisory, underwriting and financing income, which was set against a rise in fees from advising on mergers and acquisition in Asia. At Credit Suisse's trading arm, revenue from both equities and fixed income sales and trading surged, thanks in particular to an fierce uptick in bond-trading.

The Swiss bank lost rainmaker Mervyn Chow earlier this year, which sparked a shuffle of roles at its Chinese investment banking unit.