| Ossie Grübel | ||||||
The travails of Credit Suisse never cease to surprise and enthral.
But the latest instalment also carried a delicious whiff of revenge as Ossie Grübel returned in July as CEO of Credit Suisse Financial Services.
Just 12 months ago Grübel, the head of bond trading at CSFB in the glory days and a favourite of former Credit Suisse chairman Rainer Gut, lost a power struggle with Lukas Mühlemann, then chairman and CEO of Credit Suisse, and Muhlemann’s protégé (and fellow McKinseyite) Thomas Wellauer.
Grübel lost his job as head of private banking and left the group at the end of last year. Wellauer, then CEO of the financial services division, took over the private bank as well and looked all set to end up running the group.
Seven months on, Mühlemann has been forced to give up the chairman’s job – with some observers speculating that it is only a matter of time before he also loses the CEO role.
Wellauer is out on his ear. Grübel returns to take control of the financial services unit. And insiders detect the hand of Gut, who is still honorary chairman of the group, at work.
With Zurich’s rumour mill going into overdrive, far-fetched theories have been coming thick and fast – including one that proposes the return of Hans-Joerg Rudloff, Bob Diamond and Luqman Arnold as the Three Musketeers saving the group.
But Grübel’s return is not to everyone’s taste. “Mühlemann fired him a year ago because he didn’t think he was intellectually capable of being part of the bank’s general management,” says one observer. “Now he’s got an even bigger job, in charge of 40,000 people. This is not his cup of tea. He’s a very solid guy on the trading side, but he is a terrible manager. Whoever has set this job up for him has not rendered him any kind of service.”
