The UBS- Credit Suisse (CS) merger in March 2023, one of the biggest banking unions in history, was an emergency rescue deal engineered by Swiss authorities to avoid more market-shaking turmoil in global banking. The merger resulted in a significant increase in the combined stakeholder net...

Contingent convertible capital (CoCo) is a debt instrument that converts to equity or is written off if the issuing bank fails to meet a distress threshold. The conversion increases the issuer's loss-absorption capacity, but results in wealth transfers between CoCo holders and shareholders,...

We analyze the optimal capital structure of a bank issuing countercyclical contingent capital, i.e., notes to be converted in common shares in case of a bad state for the economy. This type of asset reduces the spread of straight debt but is quite expensive. The effect on bankruptcy costs is...

On March 19, 2023, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) announced that, as part of the Credit Suisse emergency package, the contingent convertible bonds that were part of the Credit Suisse Additional Tier 1 (AT1) regulatory capital, had been written off. We review the CoCo...

This paper adds to the growing body of literature on the design of Contingent Convertible Bonds (CoCos). We discuss how the design of the loss absorption mechanism affects the stability of bank funding and distinguish between Conversion-to-Equity (CE) CoCos, Principal WriteDown (PWD) CoCos with...

This paper proposes an alternative solution to the problem related to the risk that banks incur in the protection of deposits. This solution lies in the use by banks of contingent convertible leasing contracts to face financial distress situations by solidifying their own funds and thus...

Contingent Convertible bonds or CoCos are loss absorbing hybrid instruments.CoCos can be seen as derivative instruments contingent on the CET1 level. Hence one can, using some standard models, infer from observed market prices of CoCos implied CET1 volatility levels. Recent regulatory reforms...