Few investment banks have birthed as many big franchises – and huge personalities – as Credit Suisse. finews.asia takes a look at a few of the luminaries.
The Swiss bank's history on Wall Street is rich, colorful, and high-octane: Blackrock boss Larry Fink to RBS restructurer Stephen Hester and dealmaking duo Bruce Wasserstein and Joseph Perella.
CSFB's pedigree wasn't always unblemished: co-CEO John Mack famously referred to the investment bank as a «giant casino» in 2004, after he was brought in to clean up with risk. Rebranded simply as Credit Suisse in 2006, it is still fertile ground for bankers with a franchise, as finews.asia's compilation of some of the big names present and past shows.
1. Niron Stabinsky: The SPACs Kingmaker
«Mr. SPAC» has cultivated relationships with the biggest blank-check players including Chamath Palihapitiya, an early top executive at Facebook turned major investors. Led by Stabinsky, Credit Suisse clocked seven of the ten biggest Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPAC) or blank cheque firms last year, according to «The Wall Street Journal».
The banker, who began his career at then-Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) but spent the bulk at Deutsche Bank, joined the Swiss bank again in 2015. Because of him, Credit Suisse is viewed as the «kingmaker» of SPACs on Wall Street, the outlet reported.
2. John Popp: Key Producer in Asset Management
The American banker is a key producer in Credit Suisse asset management: a New York-based credit shop run by him is one of the largest managers of leveraged finance debt on Wall Street as well as one of the top managers of collateralized loan obligations, according to «IFR».
Popp’s CIG unit got a lift last year when it subsumed a private credit effort overseen by Jim Amine. Popp is a 24-year veteran of Credit Suisse, before which he built Indosuez’s asset management arm.
3. James Leigh-Pemberton and Ewen Stevenson: British Braintrust
The British duo’s financial institutions group was dominant in the dawn of this century and during the financial crisis: in 2008/09 they devised the U.K. government bailout scheme for RBS and Lloyds.
Leigh-Pemberton, the son of a former Bank of England governor, left the Swiss bank in 2014 to chair the U.K. treasury unit which manages the government stakes in the two banks.
Stevenson left the same year to become CFO of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and now holds the same role – plus a transformation and M&A mandate – at HSBC.
4. Bennett Goodman: High-Yield Specialist
The veteran investment banker is high-yield debt royalty: he began his career alongside Michael Milken at Drexel Burnham Lambert in the 1980s. Goodman joined first Donaldson Lufkin and Jenrette (DLJ), then CSFB when the Swiss bank acquired the U.S. investment bank in 2000, running its alternative capital division until 2005.
He and several partners founded alternative credit boutique GSO the same year, then sold it to Blackstone in 2008. The U.S. asset manager reportedly in 2019 sweetened Goodman’s terms – including a car and driver for life and pay second only to founder Steve Schwarzman – to keep him as an adviser.
5. Andy Stone: Donald Trump's Dealmaker
The American investment banker rode the 1990s real estate boom in Manhattan by underwriting much of the billions that financed it, including developers Harry Macklowe and Donald Trump. CSFB reportedly guaranteed Stone’s department a set share of profits, which Trump called «the best deal he (Stone) ever made», and to take huge risks.
This went sour in the downturn sparked by the Russian debt crisis (Credit Suisse was left holding the bag). Stone, a brash figure even for an investment bank, ended up fighting the Swiss bank over his bonus when he left in 1999. He founded Petra Capital Management, where he has been involved in similar but far smaller property deals, in 2004.
6. Adebayo Ogunlesi: Energy And Infrastructure
The 67-year-old Nigerian was one of the first prominent persons of color on Wall Street, eschewing a career in law (he clerked for the U.S. Supreme Court’s first African-American justice, Thurgood Marshall). He headed for investment banking instead, where the energy and infrastructure banker capped his 23-year CSFB career as head of client coverage before in 2006 launching Global Infrastructure Partners.
The $70 billion buyout powerhouse snapped up Jim Amine, another veteran Credit Suisse dealmaker, four months ago. Ogunlesi is the lead director of Goldman Sachs’ board, which is led by CEO-Chairman David Solomon.
7. Ross Mtangi: «A Name of the Market»
Credit Suisse poached the derivative flow trading star exactly three years ago from Bank of America. The Swiss bank did away with the CSFB brand shortly after Mtangi left Harvard and hit Wall Street – but this hasn’t stopped the New York-based trading executive from using the distinctive, linear blue and red logo in his LinkedIn profile.
Two years ago, he was singled out by ex-CEO Tidjane Thiam, who said «Ross Mtangi, he’s a name of the market».
8. Kenneth «Ken» Moelis: Leveraged Loan Banker
The leveraged buyout star, like Bennet Goodman, cut his teeth alongside junk bond king Michael Milken. There, Ken Moelis met Las Vegas tycoon Steve Wynn, who was out to transform the strip into «Adult Disneyland,» and became his dealmaker.
Moelis moved to DLJ when Drexel Burnham Lambert collapsed in 1990 and stayed until shortly after the investment bank was acquired by CSFB in 2001. He left for UBS, and then 2007 founded Moelis & Co. The boutique adviser ranks 14th in financial advisory by deal value – the second-largest specialist shop after Evercore.
9. Frank Quattrone: Dot-Com IPO Banker
The Silicon Valley veteran is perhaps the banker most associated with the dot-boom boom: Quattrone chaperoned scores of big initial public offerings like Amazon and Cisco. His dominance in technology led Credit Suisse's then-CEO Lukas Muehlemann to call him a «Master of the Universe».
Quattrone later faced charges of hampering a U.S. investigation into IPOs and Credit Suisse, and was acquitted in 2007. One year later, he founded Qatalyst, a boutique Silicon Valley adviser. Now 66, Quattrone still chairs the firm but stepped down from the day-to-day five years ago.
10. Robert Genillard and Hans-Joerg Rudloff: Mr. Eurobonds
He was the first Swiss to make a splash internationally in investment banking: Robert Genillard (pictured above) worked for White Weld, a U.S. firm that worked increasingly closely with Credit Suisse and laid the groundwork for its Wall Street activities. It was Genillard who recognized the potential of the Eurobond market and reaped major fees for Credit Suisse in London for pioneering them.
His contemporaries were Siegmund Warburg, founder of the eponymous merchant bank, Evan Galbraith, and Hans-Joerg Rudloff (pictured above). Genillard, who died in 2019, Rudloff, and Credit Suisse boss at the time Rainer Gut developed deep ties and were joined later by Oswald Gruebel, a Eurobond trader who later became CEO of White Weld.
While the other financiers remained in banking, Genillard took on various board mandates including Alusuisse, American Express, and Novartis, but remained tied to Credit Suisse through an advisory mandate at Clariden, a subsidiary bank.
Claude Baumann contributed reporting
