Sergio Ermotti returned as chief executive of UBS to mastermind the merger with Credit Suisse — an onerous task which begins in earnest on Monday after the takeover was finalised.
“Today we welcome our new colleagues from Credit Suisse to UBS,” he said, vowing: “We’ll create a bank that our clients, employees, investors and Switzerland can be proud of.”
Ermotti has to smooth out the controversial shotgun marriage of two of the world’s most important banks.
Nicknamed the “George Clooney of Paradeplatz”, after the Hollywood star and the Zurich square at the heart of Switzerland’s banking industry, the silver-haired 63-year-old is known for always being immaculately dressed.
The Swiss banker has a reputation that lives up to such star billing, having turned around the fortunes of UBS after the 2008 global financial crisis as he ran Switzerland’s biggest bank from 2011 to 2020.
His rise has also been like a Hollywood tale having gone from local apprentice to the two-time boss of a top global bank.
Having steadied the ship once before at UBS, can Ermotti do it again?
– Bumpy flight –
Ermotti has warned the coming months will be “bumpy” for the new megabank, whose sheer size has raised concerns in Switzerland in the event that it runs into trouble one day.
At the Swiss Economic Forum conference in Interlaken on Friday, he was asked if he saw himself as a kind of Superman figure, a clean-up man responsible for restoring order, or the new coach of a football team.
He chose the latter option, saying the task was to “make something good out of a not ideal situation”.
Ermotti will have to merge two institutions which were both among the 30 banks around the world deemed of global importance to the banking system — in short, too big to fail.
Following the collapse of three banks in the United States, Credit Suisse’s share price plummeted on March 15 as investor confidence evaporated.
On March 19, the Swiss government, the central bank and the financial regulators strongarmed UBS into buying Credit Suisse for $3.25 billion to prevent it from collapsing — and potentially triggering a global banking meltdown.
UBS chairman Colm Kelleher turned once more to Ermotti, thinking him the “better pilot” to navigate the bank’s completely altered flight path than its Dutch CEO Ralph Hamers.
Hamers swiftly vacated the hotseat and Ermotti returned to the helm on April 5.
– Path to the top –
As a child, Ermotti dreamed of a career in football but made his mark instead as one of the most talented bankers of his generation.
At 15, he quit school to become an apprentice at the Corner private bank in Lugano, his home town in the Italian-speaking south of Switzerland.
From there, he started out on a dazzling journey seen as a shining example of the Swiss apprenticeship system.
After a stint at the US bank Citigroup, he rose through the ranks of the US investment bank Merrill Lynch between 1987 and 2004, completing his training along the way via the advanced management programme at Britain’s prestigious Oxford University.
In 2005, he joined the Italian bank UniCredit for five years, where he notably headed the markets and investment banking division.
He was then entrusted with the CEO role at UBS, running Switzerland’s biggest bank from 2011 to 2020.
UBS came in for fierce criticism after its bailout by the state during the 2008 financial crisis.
But the losses in 2011 of a rogue trader who blew $2.3 billion in shady transactions was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Heads rolled and UBS turned to Ermotti, who was little-known within Switzerland, having made his career mainly in London, New York and Milan.
But he returned home after being overlooked for the CEO role at UniCredit.
He made cuts in the investment bank, refocused UBS on wealth management and settled the disputes accumulated by the bank, including the Libor and exchange rate manipulation scandals.
In 2021, he became the chairman of the reinsurance giant Swiss Re.
But when Kelleher sounded him out about returning to UBS to integrate Credit Suisse, Ermotti said he felt the “call of duty” to return.
