Credit Suisse’s Prime Unit Risk Chief Had Been Archegos Salesman

Wall Street banks have long relied on a familiar system to limit the dangers of trading with big clients: assign sales staff to win deals, and risk controllers to keep them in check -- even if it sacrifices some profit.

At Credit Suisse Group AG, executives had given the point salesman to Archegos Capital Management on its swaps desk the new responsibility of instead overseeing risk-taking in the broader prime-brokerage unit, according to people with knowledge of the matter. This year, Archegos’s swap bets spectacularly collapsed, saddling the bank with a $4.7 billion writedown, and setting it up as ...