Sergio Ermotti, “le meilleur pilote” pour l’intégration de Credit Suisse selon UBS

Sergio Ermotti, the CEO of UBS, will have the heavy task of leading the integration of Credit Suisse, another major project for this banker with an extraordinary career who had already transformed the country’s first bank.

Known for his elegance, this 63-year-old Swiss banker was called back to the helm in early April after the acquisition of Credit Suisse. For UBS’s board of directors, he is “the best leader” to successfully carry out a very complex task.

For UBS’s board of directors, Ermotti is “the best leader” to successfully carry out a very complex task

The Swiss press highlighted his excellent knowledge of UBS as well as the workings of political power, two valuable assets. The merger of the two banks is causing many concerns in the alpine country after a bailout with the help of the state.

The coming months promise to be “bumpy,” as difficult decisions are still to come, particularly in terms of employment, he warned on Friday.
Mr. Ermotti is now an essential figure in the Swiss financial market. Nicknamed the George Clooney of Paradeplatz, the banking district in Zurich, he had already led UBS from 2011 to 2020.

He took over the reins of a bank shaken by the 2008 financial crisis, which had itself had to call on the state for help, and by the losses of a rogue trader who had lost 2.3 billion dollars in risky transactions.

At the time completely unknown in Switzerland, he, who had previously built his career between London, New York, and Milan, launched a major transformation of UBS. He refocused on wealth management and pruned the investment bank.
This successful restructuring allowed him to build a solid reputation, opening the doors to reinsurer Swiss Re, of which he was appointed chairman in 2021.

But the acquisition of Credit Suisse by UBS changed the game. To avoid bankruptcy, UBS agreed on March 19 to acquire it for the modest sum of 3 billion Swiss francs (an equivalent amount in euros) under pressure from Swiss authorities.
Called back to the helm two and a half weeks later, Mr. Ermotti said he took over the leadership of UBS “out of a sense of duty.”

The Neue Zürcher Zeitung then hailed the return of this banker considered one of the “most talented of his generation.” During a conference organized last week in partnership with this Zurich daily newspaper, Mr. Ermotti was asked if he saw himself more as a sort of Superman, a janitor responsible for restoring order, or the coach of a new team.

To which this AC Milan fan responded that he preferred the latter option. The goal is above all to bring out “something good from a situation that is not ideal,” he said.

As a child, he dreamed of a career in football. At the age of 15, he left school, not to put on cleats, but to enter as an apprentice at the Cornèr bank in Lugano, his hometown, near the border with Italy.

From then on, he had a meteoric rise. After a stint at Citigroup, he climbed the ranks of the American bank Merrill Lynch between 1987 and 2004, completing his training throughout his career with a management program at the University of Oxford.
In 2005, he joined the Italian bank UniCredit for five years, where he led the markets and investment banking division, before being appointed CEO of UBS in 2011.

“Accustomed to playing the firefighter,” the man is “cut out for the takeover of Credit Suisse,” according to La Tribune de Genève. He will have the difficult task of merging two banks already considered too big to fail even before their merger.

In the statement formalizing the union of the two banks, Mr. Ermotti said he wants to create a bank that “clients, employees, investors, and Switzerland can be proud of”.
However, the integration will be carried out “without compromise,” emphasized UBS’s management, proud of the “conservative” risk culture that Ermotti had reintroduced at UBS.