Kelleher is said to be working on a secret plan to take over a CS.

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UBS is said to have been secretly working to take over Credit Suisse for weeks. At least that’s what the financial portal “Bloomberg” reports based on insider sources.

The trigger is said to be the big cash outflows at Credit Suisse this spring. From mid-March, tens of billions of francs in client assets were withdrawn from CS again. According to sources, UBS Chairman Colm Kelleher (65) assembled a team of experts long beforehand to draft a possible CS deal.

I hardly slept, I did not take a shower

The team consisted of experts from his former employer, Morgan Stanley, as well as from JP Morgan and UBS. Everything was top secret. When CS received a line of credit of up to CHF 50 billion from Swiss National Bank on March 15, all Kelleher had to do was hit the start button. He brought parts of the team together in Zurich and had experts sign confidentiality agreements.

In subsequent negotiations with CS, the takeover experts only slept three hours a day and forgot to shower.

“It’s never an easy job”

Irishman Kelleher has been chairman of UBS since April 2022 and has big plans for the Swiss bank. He sees tremendous opportunities in the acquisition of CS to take the bank further in international asset management.

Kelleher is a seasoned man familiar with crisis handling and major corporate transformations. He has scored with confident performances since the announcement of the takeover on March 19. Kelleher Wednesday at St. “This is no easy task,” he said at the UBS annual general meeting in Jakobshalle. CS integration will take several years. “You can’t just add up numbers. Kelleher told shareholders that you have to understand that the integration of CS involves enormous risks. And he followed immediately. He believes UBS is up to the task.

The feasibility study was in the drawer

Kelleher’s predecessor, Axel Weber (66), had already predicted a possible CS takeover. According to Bloomberg, it had a pre-feasibility study done for such a deal in 2020.

At UBS’s press conference on the CS rescue, those involved highlighted the difficulties of such a blitz. However, UBS management apparently was much better prepared than they said at the time. (smt)

Source :Blick