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Axel Weber’s “Signal” operation is on the table this week at the UBS Board of Directors at the bank’s own conference center in Wolfsberg. For the Germans, things look bleak.
The merger plans of the UBS president are met with fierce resistance from the boards of the two multinationals. First, Roche boss Severin Schwan, vice president of CS, should be against it.
Many in both corporate directorates are also against the Weber coup. Several important people would have to fear for their superior position.
From Wednesday to Friday, the UBS Board of Directors will discuss the country’s # 1 strategy. Depending on the opposition, “Signal” could be kept in a drawer.
This would mean that Weber’s most important ally on the big project, CS president Urs Rohner, would have to cancel the exercise for his part. There I was also planning a project group.
For Axel Weber, a quick ending to “Signal” would be a one-of-a-kind bankruptcy. The former president of the Deutsche Bundesbank had put his full weight on the scale.
In talks with high-ranking politicians in Bern, including Finance Minister Ueli Maurer and Mark Branson, the head of Finma’s financial market regulator, Weber threatened to leave UBS, according to a source.
The bank would move its headquarters from Switzerland to Germany – to the German financial center of Frankfurt, where Weber once held the scepter in the Bundesbank.
Most Swiss newspapers, especially NZZ and Tages-Anzeiger, were skeptical. One plus one doesn’t add up to two, so your argument.
Blick’s businessman made UBS president Weber the central figure in a video interview. “It’s about the ego of a banking leader, but it’s not incredibly realistic.”
Weber’s grand plan was best received on the world stage. “Is UBS buying Credit Suisse? Give it a chance,” Bloomberg headlined. The influential US news agency saw potential especially in investment banking.
“The combined firm would come closer to having the full-service investment banking offering that neither UBS nor Credit Suisse have on their own,” Schrieb Bloomberg Gestern. Und weiter:
„A leader in stocks, UBS, would marry a leading player in the credit markets. After shrinking in the wake of the financial crisis, UBS phased out much of its fixed income business that Credit Suisse would complete. “
“Similarly, Credit Suisse would strengthen UBS’s US capital markets and M&A teams.”
The Aargauer Zeitung and its online edition Watson reached UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti, who will hand over the helm to his successor in two months.
“He was also only able to get ‘no comment on the rumors’ when he picked up the cell phone.”
“When asked if a denial would not be necessary in the case of something as big as a merger speculation, there should be nothing, Ermotti repeated: ‘No comment.’
According to the story, Weber’s merger project is about strengthening private banking and competitive investment banking.
“UBS could expand its world’s leading asset management company to include Credit Suisse clients. This, in turn, would bring its investment bank much stronger into the new structure. “
Ermotti will be followed by Ralph Hamers from the Dutch ING in early November. Hamers is considered a close confidant of Axel Weber.
That would not prevent the latter from “sacrificing” its new CEO for its merger or coup, believes an insider.
