throughout the late 1800s, credit suisse set up banking and insurance companies in germany, brussels, geneva and others (as ska international) with the bank as a shareholder of each company. it created insurance companies like swiss re, swiss life, rentenanstalt and schweiz. credit suisse had its first unprofitable year in 1886, due to losses in agriculture, venture investments, commodities and international trade. the bank created its own sugar beet factory, bought 25,000 shares in animal breeding ventures and supported an export business, schweizerische exportgesellschaft, that experienced heavy losses for over-speculative investing.