Credit Suisse and UBS: Gut takes a tumble

Did Nikolaus Senn, chairman of the embattled Union Bank of Switzerland, seize a merger proposal from CS chairman Rainer Gut and use it as a crude weapon against his bitterest enemy and major shareholder Martin Ebner? Here's the story whose climax a third of all Zurich inhabitants watched on television. But will it have a happy ending? And who pairs off with whom? David Shirreff reports

Nikolaus Senn, the 69-year-old chairman of Union Bank of Switzerland, unwinding at his holiday home in Florida, gets a message from the office in Zurich. Rainer Gut, chairman of rival group CS Holding, wants to have a talk.

Senn is suddenly wrenched, from the relaxation of Palm Beach, back to the hot-house he left in Zurich. It’s two weeks before his bank’s annual general meeting (AGM) – the last he will see as chairman. It promises to be a cliff-hanger.

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