Back in the early 1980s I was employed by a firm called Phillips and Drew. They were one of the top 2 or three stockbroking firms in the City of London. Far from being an ‘Establishment’ firm their employees had backgrounds in redbrick universities and regional accents dominated. The Chief Economist who later became the overall head of the organisation was the face of the firm. He came from Blackburn Lancashire. He had a sing song voice and a delightful cackle for a laugh. He would appear on the TV at least once a week offering a view on economic developments or news. He would sit on TV panels appraising the budget and he was, to all intents and purposes, the voice-piece of the City of London to the population at large. I liked him a lot.
Around this time the London Financial scene became deregulated-Big Bang as it was termed.The various broking and jobbing firms were put up for sale and the partners of these companies became millionaires and in some cases multi millionaires overnight. The buyers came from all over the world but The Americans led the charge. Some were to disappear in relatively short time as they realised that their dollars had been misspent but some are part of the success that London became as a Financial centre.
Sec Pac, Citi Bank, JP Morgan various French Banks and many more had cemented their marriage but what of my firm, rumours circulated. To everyones surprise our suitor was The Union Bank Of Switzerland. A mysterious behemoth whose interest was a complete surprise.
The UBS accounts of the day could best be described as opaque. A huge and I mean huge amount of capital-cant quite remember but I recall that we were told it was the best capitalised bank in the world. It was only one of two or three ‘treble A rated’ banks at the time which was ‘very good’! Its activities included a branch system in its native country, and asset management business with little or no detail, and a variety of acquired assets in the US, non of them top drawer and appearing random in their collective strategy.
Of course we tried to find out more and one man told an interesting tale. I cannot verify it but looking back and knowing what I know now it made huge sense. It reaches to the heart of Switzerland itself its history and its economic prowess.
This is not a history lesson it is a gathering of anecdotal information if any of the facts are untrue the collective story is not. Switzerland is a land locked country surrounded by mountains. It is made up of several self managed Cantons and its population numbers around 7 million. For a long time it has been seen as safe harbour for money. Its economy, based upon its financial activity is super robust and as a result its currency, over time, has appreciated against the debt laden alternatives. Little has been written but during the second world war it has been reported that Switzerland became the recipient of billions and billions of dollars or anything else for that matter as it was neutral in the wars. Wealthy Germans (Nazi money) French and of course The Jewish people came across the borders their vehicles loaded with bank notes. The coffers of the banks swelled the currency appreciated and the whole thing became a self fulfilling circle of money creation. The Swiss had no time for transparency and accountability instead the Swiss banking Laws we’re all about secrecy and security. Make a hundred million dollars by dealing in drugs say and pop it into a Swiss bank. The bank would charge you for the privilege as interest rates were for the ‘non Swiss’ to offer. Go back in ten years time and your money would be safe but it would also have appreciated against your home currency as the Swiss Franc would have gone up. Better still the dirty money would be clean and your Swiss Cheque book would even be seen as a sign of respectability. Again what’s fact here and what is fiction does not matter the truth is at the heart what I write. UBS was of course a quoted company but the shares mainly held by The Swiss themselves at the time. It was seen as cast iron and a bastion of quality. However the American Investors were coming and they asked questions. Awkward ones for the Swiss. How come you have this huge amount of capital but your returns are so low. What do you actually do? Well I can tell you that their asset management dominated the Swiss Stock Market. The ‘secrecy law’ seemed to stretch only so far and all my experience was the the UBS was remarkably well informed about the other major Swiss industrial firms. Maybe telling each other what was going on qualifies as part of secrecy! UBS dominated activity on the domestic Stock Exchange and here is the first ‘fact’ that would boggle the mind of any conventional or reputable investor. I was told this fact by an executive of the bank. He told it to me with pride. Apparently the major source of UBS ‘profits’ in the 1980s was trading in its ‘own’ shares. The CEO had responsibility for okaying the process. Armed with all the information it needed from its own accounts the Bank would position itself in its own asset. An optimistic statement would cause the share to rise a pessimistic one to fall and guess what, the bank was positioned to take benefit. Not illegal in Switzerland at the time this mind blowing approach to its activities and the huge profits it generated were but part of the web of dubious activities and operations. Again not illegal in Switzerland but frowned on, if indeed anyone understood what was happening in the rest of the world.
UBS paid up for Phillips and Drew. The final amount never published of course (a secret) The partners of Phillips and Drew basked in their new found wealth. More junior members of the firm like me, dreamed of paying off their mortgage but few recognised that the money paid and subsequent millions poured down the drain were but pocket money to the men of Zurich.
At the time I was working in New York for Phillips and Drew. Our business was taking off and I was loving life. I was jetting around the USA meeting new clients and feeding a rapidly growing appetite for International Investing. I was singe handedly generating as much commission a the whole London Equity operation and I was something of a celebrity when I made my frequent transatlantic visits to London. Paul Neil had taken over running the London operation and we got on well. He had no idea what I and our Office were actually up to but our profits were sensational and life was good.
A cloud appeared on the horizon as our New York Law firm informed us that the SEC had contacted them with the news that UBS, who had a New York Fledgling operation itself, could not buy Phillips and Drew International due to a historical securities law. Glass Steigl by name or similar. There was no choice but to shut down Phillips and Drew International. All of us including my colleague and later to become well know city figure Sir Hector Sants would have to return to London. What would happen? Weeks of worry and concern. The law firm came up with a solution. Most of the Phillips and Drew employees would have to return to London. A very small number would be interviewed by UBS and employed directly by them and become a new division of the bank. So picture this Phillips and Drew whose offices were in a super smart pencil block all modern fittings and style and a group of highly motivated hand picked people working well and flourishing with me in all truth leading the charge. I went for my ‘interview’ at UBS. In a prominent position on Park Avenue a few blocks from Grand Central Station and next to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel was the West Vaco building. Black, unfriendly looking and imposing. The ground floor lobby showed a round 30 floors of the building as being the activities of UBS. My appointment was in the 34the floor. The elevator stopped at the wrong floor and as the doors opened I saw to my surprise a huge floor full of desks but ALL were empty. I was to meet the COO of the bank for my interview it was a bizarre affair. He had flown in from Zurich that day I later learned. I cannot remember his name but there he stood in a drab suit and brown shoes (never ever brown shoes-an old London Stock Exchange rule) There I was immaculately dressed in my tailored suit, finest cotton shirt gold cuff links and a Hermes tie. I am told I was a very outgoing person then very good at making people feel relaxed and very personable. I reached forward’s and grabbed the mans sweaty palm, he was very nervous. Of course looking back I can see that UBS were keen to get good feedback from their first contact with a Phillips and Drew employee particularly as this was in all truth a ‘star’ employee. He took me into a luxurious board room and proceeded to blurt out his own CV. I am the Chief of the Transport Staff of the Swiss Army he said. I report directly to Herr Studer in this role who you will know is the General in charge of the Swiss army. I knew the man not but in my mind he was the CEO of UBS. The man told me of all his responsibilities in the army and how important he was. I was amazed but remained polite. After about half an hour of stories of his achievements and his inside track to the leader he leaned across the table and offered me a package. ‘Please consider this Mr Elliott’. ‘Its Dennis’ I said. Call me in Switzerland when you have made a decision please Mr Elliott. The ‘interview’ was over.
Now I was soon to discover that The UBS was run on similar lines to the Swiss military. Senior in the Army senior in the Bank. Elite in the Army in say the nationally revered Mountain troop division and the likelihood was a cushy post in charge of some asset management division would be yours. At the time It made little or no sense but looking back it makes sense of everything I saw and at the time did not understand. Now most strange of all was the fact that rank was not determined by your ability to generate profit say or your ability to produce learned research or similar. It was purely down to how many people reported to you!! The letter I was given set out that my rank, if I were to accept the offer of a job, would be as First Vice President. Now from memory you needed to have 125 people ‘reporting to you to achieve this ‘rank’. I was offered this rank as a ‘special case’ and also to recognise that the International Securities division, which I was to head, would likely grow significantly over the coming years. Of course having a senior sounding rank in the USA was wholly necessary but I doubt very mush this was part of Swiss thinking. In addition I was informed I would take charge of no less than 14 Swiss individual who were at the time operating in New York offering services to US Institutions in buying and selling Swiss shares. Jumping forward all I will say about this lot was they were a collective nightmare. Contrary to the rules they would gabble away to each other in Swiss German. The were obviously talking about me. They were in all honesty collectively useless but over time I did warm to one or two of them and through them I gained an uncanny insight into the true workings of the bank. With a whole load of trepidation I accepted the offer of the job. I loved working in New York, I was offered a health pay rise and I was told I would have support to build the leading International Securities operation in the USA. I was asked to fly to Zurich to sign my contract and meet the top management.
The first perk being First Vice president of UBS was to discover I was booked to fly First Class. I was to stay in Zurich and my room was magnificent in a hotel overlooking the lake. I was in a slightly amused state as I approached Barnhoffe Strasse on an Autumn late morning where I was to have lunch with Herr Studer who was head of the Swiss army and oh yes the Bank too. The Transport Officer(COO) was there too and man called Rudi Mueller who amazingly became a Knight of The Realm many years later. He was the head of Securities world wide and he was to be my new overall boss. I could write a book on this man but I will just say he was a bully. We had ‘interesting’ relationship over the years and rather like on this first meeting he was someone who was always very uncomfortable in my presence. The reason for this was, I suspect, he knew next to nothing about how the securities world worked outside of Switzerland and how the rules of business operated without the military over ride or laws of ‘reciprocity’. (Astoundingly back in the day and maybe still now the greater good of Switzerland was considered in all things business and the unwritten law was I help you and therefore you MUST help me).
The lunch was interesting. I had to listen to a review of the weekends military operations. At times the bastards would break into Swiss German. They knew absolutely nothing about what I did so their questions are either broad based or else quite frankly ridiculous. I was polite and made them laugh once or twice. The food came on plate, it was like apiece of art. The wine was some Switzerlands finest I was told. I did not like but but made polite noises. In the embarrassment of the occasion I ate my meal quickly, there was hardly anything of it any way. Noticing, Herr Studer insisted I had more and all politely requested the same. The new plates were exactly the same in layout as the first to the minutest of detail.
The lunch over I headed out and back to New York the saga had begun. Now as it happened one of my largest clients in New York was in fact UBS’s key rival SBC (the Swiss Banking Corporation) less military than UBS it ws again absolutely huge in terms of its capital base. It had a dummy Fund Management operation in New York headed up by a man called Marcus Ospel. His direct employee was a man called HansPeter Ackerman. Hanspeter ran a fund of which was in fact a Model pension fund for US clients who were seeking to diversify a part of their portfolios away from America into the rest of the world. As a dummy portfolio it had no real clients at the time and the fund was seeded by the bank itself. The idea was to build up a track record then over time , if the performance was good, market it to actual investors in the US. Performance was the key to their potential success and Hanspeter was a delightful Swiss man who had been handpicked and sent to New York. As recorded elsewhere his offices were on the 101st floor World Trade Centre Number 1.
Now I got on very well with Hanspeter and I learned a lot about Switzerland from him. Suffice it to sat he described himself as a second generation Jew and he revealed that a lot of money in Switzerland had Jewish routes and surprise surprise a lot of the people too. He was married to a New York `Jewish woman called Hilary who worked for Goldman Sachs. We got on very well. He, a Swiss would take the pee out of his rival bank. We would go on Ski trips together at the weekends and we generally became firm friends. I worked hard at giving him by best recommendations and soon he was giving my firm large amounts of business. Unusual for a pension fund he created a lot of activity as he made short term decisions geared to enhance the performance of the fund. He did well and as he did more and more business came my way. I got to know his boss Marcus Ospell. He was an awkward man but Hanspeter told me he was a very intelligent man and he was always friendly to me. He actually played one of the biggest pranks on me ever. But I will save that for another time.
Anyway life at UBS moved forward. I had a magnificent office of mega proportions overlooking the Waldorf Atoria Hotel. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of this office ws the fact that in the winter it had a birds eye view of the hotel opposite. People would book in and arrive at their rooms and turn on he lights. Assuming the net curtains afforded privacy they would go about their business. Now the thing is that net curtains with a light behind them offer no privacy at all-check it out. I had a muti screen tv show on some truly shocking human activities. I will reveal details for a fee!! My division grew as I hired people but I will leave a whole host of stories about that so as to keep to the point. The man who was overall uncharge of New York did not have a clue. He had a dubious degree from a second rate US university seemingly his only claim to fame. He was terrified of me as he had no clue what I was doing and he would ask me stupid questions and nitpick on some subject or other. The local Swiss were driving me mad but thankfully I was hiring some superb Americans many of whom were to form the centre of some special stories I may relate at a later date.
The first thing I noticed about senior Swiss management, apart from the fact the their rank in the army was way more important than their knowledge of banking was they took a lot of holiday. The CEO, Studer, would release his plans to the banks ‘management in the first week of January. He took around 8 weeks I seem to remember. The second in command then listed his plans so as not to coincide with ‘the boss’ and so on. In truth it had some merit as it meant they all had something to look forward to. The life work balance and all that but again I was soon to discover that most of them did very little. Banking hours are strictly adhered to. At 4 :30 as soon as the New York Stock Exchange closed my Swiss ‘Friends’ would all down tools and head off home. I complained to my local aforementioned Swiss ‘boss’ about that and he could see nothing wrong so I gave in. The Swiss would go home early and by the way they started late too arriving en masse at 9:30, curiously never late, reporting on the magnificent breakfast they had enjoyed in the staff canteen. Another feature of Swiss life was the actual working conditions were 5 star. The canteen was amazing and all the office furniture was of the highest quality and the walls are adorned with fine art.
Now the thing was that all the senior management took part of their holiday in the US. They would fly in with their families (I am guessing courtesy of the UBS paying for their flights). They would stage some meetings in our office in order to create the illusion of actually doing something. Of course my local New York Swiss team was an obvious place to stage a meeting. There would be lots of these meetings and I got to meet most of the senior management of the bank. Always the same introduction I am in this or that division of the army!! Always an interest in Swiss share prices i later learned why. Insider dealing as such was not illegal in Switzerland. reciprocity and ‘secrecy’ was the lifeblood of the whole thing. The domestic stock and share business was dominated by the UBS and their clients ‘often from around the word and probably or possibly funded by nefarious activities were probably;y or possibly washing their currency. The Head of Swiss research I will not name but his job was to change recommendations on Swiss shares. Changing Hoffman la Roche to a buy say, probably doing so on ‘very reliable information’ would mean that the various fund managers around Switzerland and other places where UBS had offices, changing their client portfolios and buying some Roche shares. The volumes generated by this activities as UBS was by a mile the largest operator was that inevitably the shares would rise. However it was not as simple or even as pure as that. The Head of research would before changing his recommendation make a purchase himself. Amazingly it was not illegal. This was his perk of the job. (He retired very early very rich and no wonder). Having bought himself some he would tell his closest contacts and wishing to create favour, he would call the various senior management figures all of whom became beholding to him to suggest they make a purchase too. The bank itself would allegedly load up too the word would get out amongst the ‘boys and girls’ and many would ‘invest their savings’ including most of my “gang” in New York. Then guess what the following week a research note would be published in all its glossy glory. Well written and using all the normal metrics. The financial papers would trumpet that ‘UBS turns buyer of Hoffman LA Roche’ and the shares would appreciate. This activity was I repeat totally legal under Swiss law at the time as far as I can gather but when I discovered the depth of activity coupled with the goings on in the UBS share price itself I realised that UBS far from being an elite high quality institution was something else. I will leave you to decide exactly what it was.
In my time in New York with perhaps only a hand full of exceptions I met no-one in senior management of UBS who was anything more that downright useless. UBS hired hundreds of people in New York to grow its business and the floors slowly filled. All I can say is that very very few of them were of any quality.
One day in New York I was invited to a dinner hosted by Herr Studer, the CEO, in order to introduce a ring star in the organisation Mathis Cabialavetta. He was later to become bank CEO. This man came from one of the Italian Swiss Cantons I seem to remember. He was extremely athletic looking and the first thing I was told about him was he was s senior officer n the Swiss elite army division The Swiss Mountain troops or similar. Now what I recall is that these folk were and probably are the best athletes in an athletic army. The best skiers of course but also they got around on bikes. Not modern carbon bikes but really heavy old fashioned ones. Apparently Mathis was famed for his climbing feats on these bikes and he was universally acclaimed as a man who liked to support others no more so that cranking his metal steed up hill. In Swiss eyes a hero of course. He was very touch feely and he spoke with a machine gun speed. He spoke excellent English his education in a polytechnic equivalent in Canada later learned but the speed of his speech was such that you could scarcely take in what he was saying. A US journalist, probably fairly described him, as someone who spoke faster that he could think!! Anyway Liz was seated next to him as some sort of honour to her in a curious setting of senior New York Managers meeting this man in the company of many of the senior Swiss. Excruciating is the only way to describe the affair. I was seated next to the US Presidents wife who was just terrified and the only thing I could get her to talk about was her love of crochet and dolls. Cabilaveta sounded off bewildering everyone and the looks on some of the wives of my senior US colleagues was something to behold. The Head of Corporate Finance was a good mate of mine, he came from Califiornis and we lived near each other. He was quite open to me that he considered UBS to be a band of, well I better not say it, but as long as he was being paid the shed loads he was he was happy to keep quiet. His wife was an urbane Wall Street lawyer presumably dragged to the dinner by her spouse. We shared a car home and her observations on the gathering were perceptive and downright withering. Just imagine successful American well educated business women meets a load of chauvinistic childish Swiss ….. dressed up in suits!!
In time Cabailavetta took the top seat and he announced to those who could keep up a new strategy for the bank. I was back in London by this time as our London Office had been caught up in a huge fraud in which a company called Blue Arrow had issued a rights issue to fund future expansion. This issue had, due to market conditions, failed. The company itself was decidedly dodgy and the fact that senior UBS management sanctioned the activity was alarming enough. Unfortunately instead of admitting their mistake the shares were spread around existing clients of UBS and in the end around 25% I seem to remember ended up being put a way in ‘safe places.’ All highly illegal under US and Uk security laws. Not surprisingly looking back The Swiss saw no problem in it, that is until the proverbial hit the fan. People were arrested and I was brought bask from New York to head up the client facing business of the Equity division in the UK. In short my job was to head up the UK sales operation and progressively apologise to our clients, most of whom had put us on the ‘ban list’. All I will say about this is I did a magnificent job. In the four years I was in charge we became the number one firm in the UK. I got little or no credit for all my work as some distracting events took place which are not for now. Cabailavetta at the same time had big plans being to get an adequate return on the banks asset base. Look out!
Now UBS was over time being scrutinised by investors. Many of them very sophisticated. It was one of few treble A rated bank because it had so much capital. The thing was its activities produced inadequate returns on that capital and questions were asked -progressively louder questions. When UBS had bought Phillips and Drew the world as it was could only see a massive bank with huge reserves backed by a country and currency that wreaked of security. By the end of the nineties this was not enough. Swiss banking laws were seen to be what they were and whilst legal action was all but impossible in Switzerland elsewhere I imagine it was different.
A small anecdote perhaps provides some insight to what was really going on. A US Client Of mine Bill Eiland of whom I will tell some wonderful tales at another time had invited me to his home in Summit New Jersey for the weekend whilst my family was away in the UK on holiday. Such was his sense of humour that he discovered that a number of his neighbours worked for UBS in New York. This is true I promise. They had, quite reasonably formed a ghetto in Summit, where their families could live and work whilst enjoying their New Your Posting. I think from memory there were around a dozen men who were employed by the bank. I had just started working directly for UBS and Bill being Bill he invited his neighbours to a barbecue at his house to coincide with my visit. The gathering was not exclusively made up of the Swiss people but as they were used to keeping their own company apparently they gathered together whilst the food cooked. Bill and I in time became the closest of friend in a highly unusual way. He was of Irish roots and he had a sense of humour that made the word ‘wicked’ look mild. Any way on this night the dozen Swiss or so are in his garden sipping cocktails when he grabbed me by the arm and ‘presented’ me to the group. ‘This is Elliott’ I distinctly remember him saying. He is a ‘limey’ and he works for your lot!!” with that he turned on his heel. The Swiss were all very embarrassed but in turn they asked questions. It was all very uncomfortable. Suddenly one of them, and shortly all of them, presented business cards. The UBS logo was not present nor the name of the bank. Instead a PO Box number of Grand Central Station New York sat aside their name. I produced my card which made them all very nervous as i outranked them all by some margin I later worked out. Now the thing was I asked questions trying to work out exactly what they all did. And reluctantly they revealed that they did not in fact work in the US but New York was their base and stop over point from the region from where they collected assets for the bank. Guess where they operated-yes you have it South America and to be precise Northern South America and we all knows what that was about. Their assets would be collected parked in Switzerland sanitised and all that is what I imagine happened. All legal again at the time by the way. But the bigger picture was this billions coming in from ,err how to say this, a variety of activities, and incompetent boy soldiers attempting to find ways to generate some kind of return on those assets and of course failing too do so cos they did not have a collective clue!!
So back in London Mathis decided to make a bold move. For some huge sum he bought a derivatives business. I won’t go into derivatives here but they are the murky world of Stock Markets. Typically staffed by people with further maths degrees they take bets on the markets and securities within them via highly geared instruments. Often the liability for these positions will be way in the future The pricing of the total activity does as a result become problematic . How to price something that has a daily price versus its eventual maturity date when a fixed price will exist.
Anyway this team of ‘traders’ arrived and was set up in The London Offices of UBS. They had a room to them selves. There were perhaps 30 or 40 of them. Few were originally from the UK. They were a secretive uncommunicative lot who kept themselves to themselves. Their office had no windows I remember and the whole place was bathed in a sort of blue light. A whole series of computers punctuated the scene. Their local reporting line was to Hector Sants who was head of equities in London. He was my boss by then and as we had a long association with each other he was given to giving me ‘special projects’ to oversee. In this case whilst the group actually reported to Cabailavetta himself directly the local reporting lines had to be in place if only to satisfy an increasing curious regulatory environment. Hectors master stroke was to appoint me as a member of the teams management committee. His tactics were sound in theory. Dennis can spy on them and what we all know is if he can understand what they are doing and explain to the rest of us then we will have a reasonable understanding of what is what. You will glean some sort of back handed compliment there but Hector sensed that pulling the wall over my eyes would be difficult. In truth after a number of meetings I can readily attest that I had not the foggiest idea of what they were doing. I could however make some pretty accurate character assessments, subjective of course, and all I can say is how to put this ‘No” ! A more dubious group of people I have never met in my life. Hector became alarmed as he, like me saw some of the actual numbers they were playing with. Huge! but warnings to Mueller who laughably now ran London and even more laughably was later to be knighted for it, God help us, would hear none of it.
If I had stayed longer on that committee I daresay I would have learned more but shortly I was to regain my sanity by joining BZW The Investment Banking Arm of Barclays at he time. I was of course fuelled by an almost alarming return of my sense of self esteem and my BZW career literally took off. As a result, looking back I took little notice of what the Swiss were up to. I think I wanted to purge my mind of the whole experience. A few months or maybe years later I am not sure the headlines in the paper were of a Swiss bank merger. SBC, the smaller bank, was to take over UBS. Guess what, in doing so the name of the combined entity which was to be headed by Marcus Ospel the man I knew from SBC New York, was to change its name. Yes you have guessed it to UBS. What had actually happened was hushed up. Indeed only one very thinbook has ever been written about the whole thing and even that is full of inaccuracies. The Swiss decided it was not the business of the world to know and hushed the whole thing up as much as they could. Frankly none really cared as the actual front line activities and commercial activitiesof the bank are not ingrained in any national economy-apart from Switzerland that is. I can only report third hand that the aforementioned derivatives unit lost a fortune. There was huge dispute as to whether a regulatory initiative to ‘daily price’ the books revealed a huge book loss, I will never know but apparently when the whole thing was wound up and positions collapsed billions were lost. The operators of the business protested that if the portions had been allowed to mature then no money would have been lost. I don’t know I was not in the debate. However Machine Gun Mathis had wiped out one of the worlds only 3 star banks. Amazingly he arose from the ashes and assumed various highly paid positions back in his homeland. Many UBS employees were doubtless integrated in the new operation. They had their name back so that bit was OK but they would all be reporting to SBC managers who typically, so I am told were not chosen by their army rank!!
Looking back my time at UBS was truly amazing. Each and every day I was confronted with absolute nonsense. Either by way of the decisions that were made, the people who made those decisions and the general activity of the bank. There were many who worked out what actually the whole thing was really about but they like me have never fully understood what really went on. Suffice it to say that this was nonsense on huge scale and my little mind nearly went mad trying to understand it.
If by any chance this piece were ever to get out I want to say that I did meet some excellent and delightful people in UBS who were honest and hard working. I think most of these like me at the time wanted to think the best of what was going on. I have a huge number of stories to tell linked to this piece involving some of the characters I have mentioned above. There was one really curious anecdote that I will relay because I don’t know where else I will put it.
Many many years ago on my very first visit to New York City I stayed in The Drake Hotel. It is by some strange coincidence, given what happened, Swiss owned. I suppose it would be around 2003 by this time and all sorts of things had happened to me in my working life. I was a ‘Global Partner’ of one of the Worlds leading Investment Management companies at the time but a recent acquisition the company had made meant the role I had been hired to perform had changed significantly. My contract had been drawn up with all sorts of conditions by a very expensive lawyer and one of those conditions was that in the event of Invesco making an acquisition of another Investment Management company I would have the right to leave the company and take all my accrued benefits including share options with me. Invesco had just announced its purchase of the Perpetual group in the UK and the CEO of Invesco London, who I was on excellent terms with, offered me the choice of heading the Groups ‘Culture programs worldwide’ or taking my money and leaving. Now on paper running culture programmes around the world had its merits but I was sick of travelling I did not want my career to end trying to persuade the head of French Operations that his stylish interpretation of the corporate logo was not OK and it had to be changed-good luck with that.! There I was in New York , I was there to meet with the New York Operation of Invesco and progress some plans for mutual cooperation. As it happened I decided to stay in the Drake-for old times sake- and because it was an excellent hotel. I sat alone in the bar pondering my next move the proverbial back of an envelope calculations going on along side my half drunk beer.
Suddenly to my complete surprise I was confronted by an older, hairless version of a man who had worked for me in New York many years ago from the time of this meeting. He was called Frank Rauber and he was one of those 14 Swiss individuals who I had so struggled with. He told me that he was no longer employed by UBS but instead he had a very good job with some European organisations where he was the “Head of Sales’. I was really surprised to see him and my mind flooded with a whole series of memories. It was given to Frank to offer the only gratitude I can ever remember getting from anyone Swiss. ‘After you left New York I realised that you were very good at what you did. You were the best boss I have ever had. Today every day I think to myself what would Dennis say here or what would he do in this or that situation. ‘Thank you’ he said ‘you have been my role model and inspiration.’ Suddenly he was gone. Thanks Frank because that small gesture allowed me to reframe my whole experience with UBS. It was clearly not all bad!!
Tales of a Life Well Lived 