It was the first shareholder meeting in four years, and the last of 167.
Three police vans stood outside the entrance to the Hallenstadion on the outskirts of Zurich, as a crowd of mostly older white faces shuffled into Credit Suisse’s annual meeting.
Two protesters — a mother and daughter — stood silently holding a banner: “Justice for Mozambique” — a reference to just one of the many scandals in recent years that brought Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s most illustrious bank, founded in 1856, to this point.
It is barely a fortnight since the Swiss government forced the lender into the arms of its bigger domestic rival: engineering a takeover by UBS to stave off Credit Suisse’s imminent collapse, the biggest casualty of central banks’ monetary policy tightening.
This week it was the turn of shareholders in the two Swiss banks — denied a voice by government fiat in the terms of the merger itself — to have their say.
“It’s strange. I don’t know. It’s almost satirical really,” said Sergio Gerosa, as he stood holding his voting card outside the entrance to the Hallenstadion ice hockey arena on Tuesday morning. “It’s a snapshot of the modern financial economy.”
Neither company is regarded with much affection in Switzerland anymore. Just one in five Swiss banks with either. But the takeover closes a longstanding divide in the country. Most Swiss, if pressed, would declare some affinity to one side or the other.
Credit Suisse was the great, liberal powerhouse of protestant Zurich’s 19th century ascendancy: a Buddenbrooks bank.
UBS was the upstart, a more aggressive union of banks whose origins were in Basel, the catholic, cultural — French-facing — industrial city on the Rhine.
Since the 1970s the two have been locked in a fight for dominance. It was not so long ago that Credit Suisse seemed the inevitable victor. During the 2008 financial crisis, it was UBS that was bailed out, with a SFr60bn lifeline from the government.
“After the financial crisis we were named the ‘Best Bank Globally’,” said Credit Suisse’s chair Axel Lehmann, as he opened the annual meeting in the Hallenstadion. “The years since . . . that is the bitter reality.”
The crackle of anger that had hung over proceedings seemed to lift. Lehmann had, after all, only been in charge of the board for the past two years.
Ulrich Körner, Credit Suisse’s chief executive, had been in charge for even less — nine months.
“We didn’t succeed. We ran out of time. This fills me with sorrow,” he said. “What has happened over the past few weeks will continue to affect me personally and many others for a long time to come.”
The tone over the five subsequent hours was funereal, with solemnity giving way to flashes of absurdity, humour and rage.
There was even a wake. Some shareholders began drinking at the free bar before the final set of resolutions had been voted on.
There were speeches and pointed questions to the board on pay and strategy from institutional shareholders. Vincent Kaufmann, of Ethos, a proxy adviser representing more than 3 per cent of shareholders, said the collapse of Credit Suisse had been “a debacle without precedent”.
Patrik Salzmann, a lawyer from Zurich, was even more forensic. His list of questions — asking for date-by-date figures on asset outflows — sounded like a deposition. When Lehmann told him his time was up and he must stop, Salzmann coolly refused. “I am a shareholder, Mr Lehmann, and I have the right to speak.” The hall broke out into applause.
Preachers, lawyers, scions of the super-rich, pensioners, young socialists and velour-clad rustics — the most charismatic of the lot — took to the podium.
“I came without my gun this morning,” said the first speaker, Guido Röthlisberger — an attempt to poke fun at the heavy security of the event. He was wearing a red tie, he added, because “many shareholders are seeing red”.
Daniel Engler, a politician for Switzerland’s conservative Christian Federal Democratic Union party, reminded shareholders that once — back in 2007 or so — a single Credit Suisse share was worth around SFr80, “the price of a chateaubriand!”.
Now he lamented, they can only buy you a croissant. His homily then swerved into a reflection on the sanctity of the cross that each Swiss franc (and the country’s flag) bears. He lost the crowd when he hinted at how, in holier times, the board might have been crucified for their crimes.
More resonant was the moment another shareholder pulled a handful of walnuts from his pocket, proffering them to Lehmann as the fair exchange for shares in the once great bank.
Wednesday in Basel was a much different affair, although some of the same shareholders were present.
Martin Kaufmann, of Meilen, a Credit Suisse and UBS shareholder, turned up to declare on Wednesday that he would like to speak for 167 seconds — one for every year of Credit Suisse’s existence, before its takeover. At minute three his gesture began to lose its symbolism. At minute five, he asked the UBS board whether they might consider suing the Financial Times for its coverage of the takeover.
It was not the most jolting moment of the morning. That came when Stephan Zurfluh burst into anti-capitalist song. Not so long ago, he had recounted by way of introduction, security had ejected him from a shopping centre in Baden for busking. UBS owned that mall. This appeared to be his revenge.
In the round, however, UBS’s annual meeting was an occasion for restrained concern — with occasional flashes at the possibility that the bank may just have pulled off the deal of the century.
Throughout, Colm Kelleher, the bank’s Irish chair, was at pains to emphasise the scale of the challenge that merging with Credit Suisse poses.
There was some common threads between the two meetings: time and again, Swiss shareholders seemed to blame the influence of “foreign” values on the situation both banks now find themselves in.
It was Credit Suisse’s drift into “American” investment banking that caused this crisis, just as it had for UBS in 2008, said some shareholders, while others called for the end of “the culture of bonuses”.
At times others drifted into conspiracy. Washington has got what it wanted and “destroyed Swiss banking”, one Credit Suisse shareholder claimed, before suggesting that UBS would itself become a target.
Calmer voices from both shareholder groups, meanwhile, pointed out the sheer scale of the bank that was being created. The combined entity will have a balance sheet bigger than the Swiss National Bank’s.
“From my perspective, the problem is that UBS is now far too big,” said Regula Schoch, a Credit Suisse shareholder of one week. “I don’t know how we’re going to deal with it — that’s the really big problem and there are fears there that it won’t work — for Switzerland it’s really, really bad.”
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