UBS Offers To Buy Credit Suisse For Up To $1 Billion: Financial Times Report

UBS has made an offer to buy Credit Suisse, the Financial Times reported citing four people with direct knowledge of the situation.

The deal, which the FT said could be signed as early as Sunday evening, values Credit Suisse at around $7 billion less than its market value at Friday's close.

The Financial Times said UBS had offered a price of 0.25 Swiss francs ($0.27) a share to be paid in UBS stock. Credit Suisse shares ended Friday at 1.86 Swiss francs.

Earlier, BlackRock said that it had no plans to acquire Credit Suisse. Earlier this week, Credit Suisse shares had surged after the Swiss central bank agreed to loan the bank up to 50 billion francs ($54 billion) to bolster confidence in the country's second-biggest lender and blunt concerns about the international financial system following the collapse of two U.S. banks.

Central banks in the U.S. and Europe have moved quickly to restore confidence in the banking system after last week's collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the second-biggest bank failure in U.S. history. U.S. authorities had earlier said they would guarantee all of the deposits of California-based Silicon Valley Bank and the smaller Signature Bank of New York, making sure people wouldn't be hurt by the collapse of the banks.

With inputs from pti