Credit Suisse, the wrath of shareholders. Dimon (Jp Morgan): trust at risk - Corriere.it

Credit Suisse, the wrath of shareholders.  Dimon (Jp Morgan): trust at risk - Corriere.it


He didn't bow like a Japanese manager would, but iThe president of Credit Suisse, Axel Lehmann, at the shareholders' meetingti, summoned yesterday to an ice hockey stadium on the outskirts of Zurich, immediately apologized for failing to save the second Swiss bank, which after 167 years of history will be bought for 3 billion francs by rival UBS, according to reports orchestrated by the Swiss authorities on March 19.

“We have failed to stem the impact of previous scandals and counter negative headlines with positive facts. I'm really sorry», declared Lehmann in front of almost 2,000 shareholders, in the first (and last) meeting in attendance for four years. In the end, «the bank could not be saved. I apologize for disappointing you,” he said. “Until the end we fought hard to find a solution. But ultimately there were only two options: deal or bust. The merger had to go through,” Lehmann said. "The merger with UBS was the only feasible option" and the collapse of Credit Suisse would have been "catastrophic", also acknowledged the CEO Ulrich Körner.

The apologies were not enough to calm the anger of the shareholders, who for five hours, taking the floor, one after the other, accused the top managers of "treason». Ethos, advisor for pension funds and other relevant shareholders, denounced the "greed and incompetence of the managers", in addition to the salaries that have reached "unimaginable levels". While "shareholders have lost large sums of money and thousands of jobs are at risk".

Many small shareholders have criticized the special laws which the Swiss authorities have resorted to to allow the sale to Ubs, without going through the shareholders' meeting. A move that has not only infuriated shareholders. According to a survey conducted by the research firm gfs.bern, the majority of Swiss are not in favor of the fmerger between the two Swiss credit giants. Also the Norwegian sovereign wealth fundone of the largest investors in the world, voted against the re-election of Lehmann and the other members of the boardin protest. In the end, however, with a very narrow majority, the chairman was re-elected, as were 6 other directors, while 5 out of 12 directors chose not to run again (7 is the minimum number to allow the board to work for the next two or three months of transition until the merger with Ubs). The shareholders also approved (by a narrow vote) the remuneration of the board of directors for the period until the completion of the merger, but they voted against paying the bank's executives.

However, the rescue of Credit Suisse, with the takeover piloted by UBS, goes beyond Swiss borders. Coupled with the failure of Silicon Valley Bank in California, "It risks undermining confidence in the banking sector," he said The Jp Morgan's number one, Jamie Dimon, in the letter to shareholders, accusing banking regulation. "Banks have been encouraged to own very safe government bonds, because they are considered highly liquid by the regulatory authorities and with very low capital requirements," writes Dimon with reference to the US crash. Furthermore, criticizing the Federal Reserve's stress tests, which "never incorporated interest rates at a higher level".



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