The exit of embattled Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam is a show of power for Switzerland's cozy banking establishment – but maybe not for long, finews.asia's Katharina Bart writes.
Urs Rohner pulled an ace out of his sleeve: the long-standing Credit Suisse chairman won a tense game of brinkmanship with CEO Tidjane Thiam. Both sullied by a tawdry C-suite spying scandal, Rohner managed a relatively peaceable (for now) solution which permits everyone to save face.
The ostensibly amicable divorce averts a thinly-veiled threat from Thiam that he would only go if fired. The fact that the 57-year-old executive can keep more than $7 million in vested Credit Suisse stock and other awards when he leaves next week will have cushioned the blow for the departing CEO.
Flowery Words Vs Subtext
The subtext of a flowery statement full of personal compliments is murkier: Thiam's credibility and authority had been so dramatically undermined by the scandal that he had little choice but to exit. It is a victory for an influential local lobby made up of political and business elite that had actively lobbied against the CEO.
The faction got what it wanted: in Thomas Gottstein, Credit Suisse has its first Swiss CEO in 20 years, after American Brady Dougan, German-Swiss Oswald Gruebel, and John Mack, another American. The last Swiss at the helm of Credit Suisse was Lukas Muehlemann, whose tenure from 1997 to 2000 was marred by losses at securities unit First Boston and problems with insurance unit Winterthur.
Whipping Votes
In dispensing of Thiam, Rohner risks a fight with Credit Suisse's biggest shareholder, Harris Associates. The Chicago-based mutual fund threatened to act against Rohner if the chairman dared to remove Thiam as CEO – the stock's more than four percent drop in early Zurich trading makes it obvious why.
To be clear, Rohner is enough of a tactician and power player to have tallied up the support he marshalls against estimates of what Harris could commandeer quickly: there is no way the chairman, a trial lawyer in his previous life, would have gone to war without a strong hand.
«Quid pro Quo»
Rohner emerges as the ultimate survivor: the lawyer-turned-banker escaped closer scrutiny over Credit Suisse's legal handling of Lehman-linked products following the crisis, then eluded criticism over the bank's ultimately damaging handling of a $2.5 billion American tax settlement in 2014. The 60-year-old Swiss native's semi-elegant exit in 14 months indicates a boardroom quid-pro-quo.
There will be a round of satisfied harumphing from Switzerland's business elite over Thiam's exit – but the bank loses valuable time in designing a post-restructuring strategy (not to mention a talented architect). His replacement, Gottstein, is credited with trimming the fat from the bank's Swiss retail, corporate, and private banking units since 2015.
Swiss Appeasement
His appointment represents a desire to appease the Swiss establishment that «one of their own» now runs Credit Suisse. A jocular and well-liked Swiss investment banker, the 55-year-old Gottstein presumably just needs to keep the ball in play as CEO and calm the troops after several torrid months.
One of Gottstein's biggest jobs will be to draw a hard line under the scandal and make clear internally that a culture of fear is no longer tolerated: there are also various criminal and regulatory loose ends to wrap up, as finews.com reported. Rohner managed a peaceable, face-saving solution for almost everyone involved – but the episode is far from over.
