Sensitive Finma claim from UBS senior executive: How Iqbal Khan downplayed role in Greensill case

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Once again, Iqbal Khan (47) is being floated as the possible CEO of UBS. “NZZ am Sonntag” reported last week that he and Sabine Keller-Busse (57) were running to replace Ermotti. The paper sees Khan as the clear favourite: the mood in his department is almost euphoric; Performance and meritocracy are important. Keller-Busse, on the other hand, is a micromanager who discusses everything to death in meetings that last for hours.

Khan’s problem: his role in the Greensill scandal, which contributed significantly to the collapse of Credit Suisse. Khan was head of wealth management and wealth management at Credit Suisse when the funds were launched. The so-called supply chain funds were created under his leadership. He called the executives together and approved the funds.

They were marketed aggressively. “Khan in particular greatly increased the funds,” Dirk Schütz writes in his book “So Rough in the Wind” about CS’s death. Approximately 70 percent of investments came from its region, 20 percent from Asia and 10 percent from Switzerland. When Khan moved from CS to UBS in mid-2019, the fund had $8.2 billion. When they closed in the spring of 2021, the volume was 10 billion.

Finma does not go into the history of the funds’ origins in its investigations into the Greensill scandal. It only deals with the final phase of 2019. Why he did this remains his mystery. When SonntagsBlick published its enforcement investigation against former CS boss Thomas Gottstein two months ago and also critically examined Khan’s role, UBS responded with a lengthy email.

Basic statements in the article are incorrect. However, the bank refused to make a correction. What was surprising was that the volume was “6 billion when Finma left”. Problem: According to the investigation, Finma never collected this data.

When asked, Finma wrote that officials had publicly disclosed that at the time of closing alone, clients had invested a total of approximately ten billion dollars in the fund. Finma has not and will not comment further on funding volumes in the Greensill case.

A document that does not exist

Even if it was a secret document, why would Khan have it, especially since it was subject to official secrecy and he was not himself part of the Finma investigation? He is also an employee of UBS, which is not a party to the case, since 2019. So how does UBS arrive at its claim that Finma collected these figures?

The bank does not want to comment on this matter. SonntagsBlick knows this: The information in the email comes from Iqbal Khan himself and was intercepted by the person who wrote it, without being checked for accuracy.

It seems the bank wants to prevent the head of its global asset management division from being dragged into the Greensill scandal at all costs.

This is not the first time that misinformation has emerged regarding Iqbal Khan. Even during the infamous Spygate scandal, the facts were distorted, spread by the famous Financial Times, among others. This concerns his villa in Herrliberg ZH, which borders the property of his then boss Tidjane Thiam (61).

“FT” wrote that Thiam felt harassed and harassed because of his construction work. When Thiam complained to Chairman Urs Rohner, Khan defended himself by saying that the property he bought had belonged to his wife’s family for years and that he had done nothing wrong. This was clearly wrong. The property had previous owners.

Ermotti and UBS board support Khan

Asked in Tamedia newspapers whether Khan was the right man, given the Greensill scandal and problems at CS Asset Management, UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti, 63, said he had “great confidence” in Khan. “Furthermore, no authority identified him as responsible for CS’s Greensill problems.”

It is interesting that Ermotti refers to the authorities. He did not say that UBS had clarified the matter. According to a well-informed source, this needs to be done later. The bank’s top risk officer, Chief Risk Officer Christian Bluhm, needs to clarify Khan’s role in the Greensill scandal.

UBS does not comment directly on this matter. In a statement, the bank writes: “The CEO and Board have great confidence in Iqbal Khan, who has done excellent work at UBS. There is no investigation or prosecution against Iqbal Khan.”

* Journalist Beat Schmid (54) writes about financial matters at SonntagsBlick. He is the editor of the online media Tippinpoint.ch.

Source :Blick