After an inglorious exit in Zurich: Ex-CS boss wants to become president of Ivory Coast. Houthi rebels attack ship of a German shipping company

Switzerland was definitely too small for Tidjane Thiam. And he never really understood her. This is illustrated by a traditional anecdote surrounding the ceremonial opening of the Gotthard Base Tunnel on June 1, 2016, to which many dignitaries from home and abroad were invited.

Seats were scarce, sought after and therefore limited on the first train that would pass through the building of the century. Thiam’s wish to be accompanied by a group of bodyguards could therefore not be respected. A circumstance that the then head of Credit Suisse found difficult to accept.

Thiam, who was socialized in elite French schools and in a political family from Ivory Coast, is a man with court staff. This was also the case during his Credit Suisse years, although such behavior is more appropriate for politics than for a bank. Former colleagues are therefore not surprised that Thiam now wants to return to politics. In the 1990s he was Minister of Planning and Development in Ivory Coast, and now he wants to go all the way to the top: the presidency.

First hurdle: he must convince the 6,000 delegates

A first decision on the way forward must now be made: Thiam is applying for the office of head of one of the country’s main political parties, the Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI). If he can emerge victorious over his four competitors in front of about 6,000 PDCI delegates on Saturday, he has a good chance of running for the 2025 presidential elections.

At least that’s what the experts assume. Sebastian van Baalen, a university lecturer at Sweden’s Uppsala University and an expert on Ivorian politics, sees Thiam as a potential challenger, he told the Financial Times. At 61 years old, he is relatively young in the Ivorian presidential landscape, which is dominated by older politicians.

The presidential post is held by 81-year-old Alassane Ouattara, who is currently serving his third term in office, although the constitution actually only allows for two.

The collapse of CS and Thiam’s contribution

While Thiam works on his next career, Switzerland is busy cleaning up the bankrupt Credit Suisse. And with research into the causes of how it could have come to this. Shortly after the state-orchestrated CS rescue, Thiam washed his hands as a prophylactic innocence. In a guest article in the Financial Times, he noted that when he stepped down as boss, Credit Suisse had “just posted its highest profit in a decade after a deep restructuring.” And that ‘a lot went wrong’ in the years that followed.

Banking experts obviously see it very differently. After all, it was him, the non-banker and insurance expert Thiam, who, after taking over at CS, decentralized the bank with five business units and greatly weakened risk management. This later became painfully noticeable with the two costly bad investments, Greensill and Archegos. Ultimately, it was these $2 billion bankruptcies that marked the end of Credit Suisse.

However, Thiam will be remembered by the Swiss population for a different story: for probably the most absurd neighborhood conflict in the noble villa district in Herrliberg on Lake Zurich. At the beginning of the story there was Thiam and his then subordinate Iqbal Khan, who was then on his way to UBS. The two got into an argument about trees and many other things. The affair culminated in Thiam Khan being placed under surveillance, which in turn added an inglorious episode to the list of CS scandals. (aargauerzeitung.ch)