By Michael Shields
ZURICH (Reuters) - Credit Suisse's third-quarter net profit fell short of expectations, pressuring its shares even after the bank said it would return to the black in the full year for the first time since Tidjane Thiam became chief executive in 2015.
Losses in its global markets trading unit and lower profits from its Asian operations in the last quarter weighed on its bottom line, Switzerland's second-biggest bank said on Thursday.
"There is no doubt" that the bank will post a profit this year, a spokesman said, however, as it wraps up a three-year revamp that Thiam launched to focus on managing billionaires' wealth and scale back capital-intensive investment banking.
Net income attributable to shareholders from July through September rose to 424 million Swiss francs ($421.55 million), missing the average estimate in a Reuters poll of analysts for 449 million francs.
Its global markets trading unit, which has been the focus of Thiam's cuts and the source of billions of dollars in losses over recent years, lost 96 million francs before taxes as its net revenues fell 17 percent year on year to 1.04 billion.
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The bank acknowledged it would be "very challenging" for global markets to hit its $6 billion net revenue goal for 2018.
Credit Suisse shares opened more than 4 percent lower.
On a brighter note, net new money inflows - a closely watched indicator of future earnings in wealth management - totaled 10.3 billion francs across its three wealth management businesses.
"We expect our Wealth Management-related businesses - across Swiss Universal Bank, International Wealth Management and Asia Pacific WM&C - to continue to benefit from broad-based, client-led growth in the final quarter of the year," the bank said in a statement.
Credit Suisse said sentiment turned more negative during the third quarter. It expects this to continue in the fourth quarter, it added, though it said a healthy pipeline of transactions was expected to be completed in the final quarter depending on market conditions.
Rival UBS, Switzerland's biggest bank, made a net profit of 1.246 billion francs in the quarter. It said it was targeting ultra-rich Americans for growth.
($1 = 1.0058 Swiss francs)
(Reporting by Michael Shields; Editing by John Revill and Jan Harvey)
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