January 31, 2008
Marcel Ospel and his grip on power
There is an interesting piece in the FT this morning about the growing pressure on Marcel Ospel, chairman of UBS, over the bank’s cumulative $18bn write-down on US mortgage securities.
The article refers to his "reputation as a cold-blooded power broker". I have no inside knowledge of that but I do know that he has remarkable staying power.
I first met him when Swiss Bank Corporation took over S.G. Warburg in 1996 and have followed his career through SBC’s reversal into Union Bank of Switzerland, acquisition of Paine Webber in 2000 etc.
The common thread in all these deals is that Mr Ospel came out on top, as he did when he faced a board revolt in 2001 for involving UBS in an attempt to rescue Swissair, and when heads had to roll as a result of the credit squeeze last year.
There is something impressive, if not exactly admirable, about Mr Ospel’s uncanny ability to keep his grip on power. The question is how much longer he can now last. All the indications are that the end-game is finally starting.
He and others like him are all going to have to go. For the last seven years they have benignly overseen a binge on the trading of increasingly bizarre concoctions, risibly known as ’securities’, based on a theory of risk management that has either been grossly misunderstood by them or alternatively just plain wrong. A new generation of managers is needed who might just have grasped the fact that the long term success of any bank is to earn most of their cash from providing real and constructive services to clients instead of betting the farm on the financial equivalent of dirty postcards.
Posted by: figurewizard | February 3rd, 2008 at 10:38 am | Report this comment“Why the bank[s] ran into this problem–it was a failure to understand the risks that were being incurred, securitising products which were a mix of indifferent quality, and pretending that in some way you could raise the credit quality of it simply by mixing the bag. It was shown to be a fallacy.”
Posted by: J Michael, private banker, 39 | February 4th, 2008 at 5:22 pm | Report this commentKen Costa, former vice-chairman of UBS, now chairman of Lazard International. (Lunch with the FT, 01FEB08)
Philipp Hildebrand (44) is Vice-Pres. of the Swiss National Bank and one of the so-called “Troka” there, with responsibility for financial stability and surveillance.
The front page of the “Wirtschaft” section of the NZZ last Sunday was devoted to a large photo of Hildebrand and an interview with him.
“You are being named as a possible successor as chairman of the UBS” was put to him by the NZZ am Sonntag interviewer to which Hildebrand answered “It is our policy not to comment on rumours”. I do not believe there is any banker from the private sector worldwide who could engender more confidence than the Vice-President from the SNB itself to watch over the UBS for a couple of decades.
In my opinion, Hildebrand will probably be giving a great deal of his time already now to UBS matters …..leaving Ospel with time on his hands? : A picture of him and his wife at the Opera Ball last week in Vienna was in the “Schweizer Illustrierte” this week.
Posted by: FH | February 6th, 2008 at 9:31 am | Report this commentAnd next Monday the Basler Fasnacht (Carnival) begins, and the Schnitzelbängg (the groups of singers and musicians who tour the pubs and restos in Basel during Carnival, casting rhyming comment and criticism on the events of the past year) will no doubt comment on the UBS fiasco and Ospel, who, by the way, is a member of a Basler Fasnacht “Clique” himself.
[…] to my post the other dayon the remarkable staying power of Marcel Ospel, the chairman of UBS, it seems the clock is […]
Posted by: FT.com | John Gapper’s Business Blog | Marcel Ospel meets the equity culture | February 21st, 2008 at 5:21 pm | Report this comment