Shares at Credit Suisse dropped to an all-time low on Wednesday after its top shareholder confirmed it would not provide further capital for the bank.

The chairman of Saudi National Bank (SNB), which took a 10 per cent stake in Credit Suisse last year, said that it would not pledge further funding were there a call for more liquidity.

“The answer is absolutely not, for many reasons outside the simplest reason which is regulatory and statutory,” said SNB chairman Ammar Al Khudairy in an interview on Bloomberg TV, adding that a higher stake in the bank would mean additional regulatory requirements.

Following these comments, shares at Credit Suisse dropped by more than 20 per cent.

The news will come as a further blow to the Swiss bank, which earlier this week announced it had suffered its worst year since the 2008 financial crisis after losses hit $1.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022.

In its delayed accounts published on Tuesday, the bank also identified “material weaknesses” in its financial reporting processes.

In its overdue annual report, the bank said that management at the bank failed to “design and maintain an effective risk assessment process to identify and analyse the risk of material misstatements in its financial statements.”

Credit Suisse delayed publication of its annual report after the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) raised “last-minute” questions over its earlier financial statements.

Al Khudairy's comments will likely exasperate as it works to shore up investor confidence after a number of recent setbacks and scandals, including a recent quarterly loss of $3.5 billion which prompted Credit Suisse to set in motion plans to cut 9,000 jobs worldwide by the end of 2025.

The bank also has plans to cut 10 per cent of its European investment bankers in 2023 in further response to its recent losses.

This week's annual results follow a series of scandals at the bank in recent years, with Antonio Horta-Osorio, the bank's former chairman, resigning in 2022 after breaking Covid quarantine rules.

Credit Suisse was also fined £147 million by the UK's Financial Conduct Authority for the issuing of corrupt loans worth $1.3 billion.

Another scandal saw the company found guilty by a Swiss court for failing to protect against money laundering.

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