In an interview published on Saturday, UBS Chairman Colm Kelleher stated that the bank has no interest in buying fellow Swiss lender Credit Suisse.

The former Morgan Stanley president said he was focused on organic growth rather than acquisitions and expanding the bank’s business in the United States, ruling out a bid for his bank’s embattled cross-town rival.

“We have no desire to buy Credit Suisse,” Kelleher told the Neue Zuercher Zeitung.

“There are always scenarios, but none that are convincing,” he said when asked if there were any situations where a UBS takeover of Credit Suisse made sense.

According to Swiss media, the former chairmen of Credit Suisse and UBS supported a merger between the two banks and held talks in the first half of 2020.

According to media reports, the talks eventually fell through, and both Urs Rohner and Axel Weber have since left their positions at Credit Suisse and UBS.

At the time, neither bank would comment on the merger rumors. Kelleher took over for Weber in April of last year.

“Our strategic message is: no surprises; organic growth; judge UBS by the numbers, by the U.S. business, by profitability,” he told the newspaper. “In my experience such a message is very well received by institutional shareholders.”

Kelleher said UBS had not benefited much from Credit Suisse’s problems, which had seen sharp outflows as wealthy clients abandoned the bank following a string of heavy losses and scandals.

“We have checked what has flowed to us,” Kelleher said. “We suspect the largest part of the outflows went to international banks.”

(Adapted from EconomicTimes,com)