UBS Chairman’s Top-Secret Prep Paid Off in Credit Suisse Moment
Colm Kelleher was ready when a crisis of confidence that started in US regional banking spread to Switzerland.
Credit Suisse headquarters are located adjacent to UBS offices on Zurich’s Paradeplatz.
Photographer: Stefan Wermuth/BloombergUBS Group AG pulled off one of the biggest bank deals ever in a matter of days. But the groundwork had been laid for years.
When Colm Kelleher became chairman last April, he inherited feasibility studies by predecessor Axel Weber dating back to at least 2020 on what a takeover of Credit Suisse Group AG would look like. And early this year, after clients pulled tens of billions of dollars from the Paradeplatz neighbor, Kelleher called on a small group of top advisers from his alma mater Morgan Stanley to ramp up contingency planning, according to people with direct knowledge of matter.