Five years after former Credit Suisse chief executive Tidjane Thiam split the group’s investment bank and capital markets unit, current CEO Thomas Gottstein seeks to tighten controls and boost the performance by re-merging the two.

The decision to merge the two units could be announced as soon as Thursday when Credit Suisse reports its second-quarter results, according to a «Bloomberg» report citing unnamed sources.

Risk and compliance units are also expected to be combined, the report added.

Simplification

This follows reports earlier this month that Gottstein was mulling group-wide restructuring for simplification and streamlining purposes.

Rumors claimed that the new chief was aiming to merge Credit Suisse’s businesses into as little as three units, from the current five, which could potentially include reductions in its private banking business. The latest report echoes the same line of thinking to reduce the number of regional reports under new wealth head Philipp Wehle and undo a structure built just two years ago by predecessor Iqbal Khan.

Other changes are also being considered by Gottstein, sources added.

Better Controls

Boosting the top line aside, the bank will also seek to improve internal controls after facing risk to its reputation following exposure to a series of accounting scandals.

Credit Suisse provided a margin loan for Lu Zhengyao founder of Luckin Coffee which was spotlighted earlier this year for inflating sales figures by over $300 million. The bank also helped sell $1 billion in Wirecard-linked securities last year in the midst of suspected accounting fraud which eventually led the firm to file for insolvency last month. Separately, Credit Suisse was also forced to probe internally into its supply chain funds due to close, entangled ties with Japan's Softbank.

«Our strategy works,» Credit Suisse said in a statement. «We are a leading, global wealth manager with strong investment banking capabilities. On an ongoing basis, we consider a broad range of options to identify ways to further improve how we serve our clients and achieve our strategic goals in a compliant, profitable way. We are in a constant dialogue on these topics with our investors.»