“Something went wrong after me”

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“When I stepped down as CEO of Credit Suisse, the company had just reached its highest profit in a decade after extensive restructuring. And although I coped well with sensitive situations that developed under my supervision, many things went wrong in the years that followed. »

This is the second paragraph of an article in the Financial Times. Author: Tidjane Thiam. He served as the CEO of Credit Suisse Group from 1 July 2015 to 14 February 2020. This is the first press release from a former senior executive about what’s been going on at Credit Suisse in the past few days.

The text is intended to show what went wrong with CS last time. Above all, it is a tribute to Thiam’s own actions. She recovers her skin in front of almost everyone and explains how everything was fine when she left. An unusual process. This is a grinder for the mill of those who always complain about how little self-awareness of mistakes there is among the best bankers.

Where exactly were the mistakes made?

In the text, Thiam says a lot about himself. About how he sees problems that have come for a long time. How he approaches risk management boldly and with many investments. As he wrote, an “not yet complete” venture after the breakup. It also greatly expanded its compliance team. It is from here that he gets the excellent results of CS at the time of his departure.

Did all this get blown into the wind after that? What exactly went wrong – and when? Who made a mistake? Thiam doesn’t write anything about it. He doesn’t give names. It just says how sad the current situation is.

Things were not going well for him either. His departure was dishonorable. Who doesn’t remember the case of employees being followed by private detectives? How did Finma then identify “significant gaps” in CS’ corporate governance? Is “an inappropriate corporate culture in operational management” criticized? There is not a word about it.

Don’t admit your own mistakes

Toward the end of the text, Thiam makes a worthwhile assessment of the current situation. It complains that the treatment of holders of AT1 bonds, whose titles have been unilaterally revoked by the Financial Markets Authority (Finma), is causing “significant uncertainty”. Here, years of legal consequences await. “As a result, U.S. and Asian competitors may emerge stronger from all of this,” Thiam predicts.

Thiam also complains that shareholders are denied voting rights on processes. It calls for guidelines that can be used to deal with future banking crises. “Lessons should be learned from the past”.

Thiam might be right about that. However, what remains of the text is that, at best, the person is wiser in retrospect. Does it help anyone if the previous boss made it clear that nothing would be under him?

Source :Blick