Lionel Laurent, Columnist

The Price of Being Boring

Handelsbanken CEO's exit shows the perils of changing a successful model.

August 16, 2016 at 11:13 AM UTC

Lionel Laurent is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist writing about the future of money and the future of Europe. Previously, he was a reporter for Reuters and Forbes.

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The exit of a CEO after just 18 months is usually the sign of a bank in the grip of financial turmoil or scandal. Unless it's in Sweden.

Tuesday's ouster of Frank Vang-Jensen from Stockholm-based Handelsbanken looks instead like a curious triumph of the lowly branch manager over headquarters. It is, in other words, the sign of a truly boring bank.