Monster Bank – Monster Task – Kelleher and Hamers: Who are the new bosses of the Superbank? – News

Colm Kelleher and Ralph Hamers will have to integrate the former competitor into UBS, bring together corporate cultures and largely liquidate the Credit Suisse investment bank. A monster task in the new monster bank.

Colm Kelleher: The Irishman Kelleher is an absolute connoisseur of American investment banking, who is still considered a full-blooded banker despite his retirement age. During his 30-year career at Morgan Stanley – where he held the position of CEO and CFO in particular – he successfully led the American bank through the financial crisis and therefore knows how to steer a bank through turbulent times.

Ralph Hammers: The 57-year-old Dutch banker – with extensive retail banking experience – is considered to be affable and has significantly changed the corporate culture of UBS since his arrival in Zurich in 2020. Before moving to Switzerland, he managed the Dutch bank ING, which was involved in a money laundering procedure in 2018, which is still ongoing and also affects Hamers. Summary Editor-in-Chief Dirk Schütz sees little threat to Hamers in the process.

Legend:

Ralph Hammers

REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo

The perfect duo? The duo of Irish investment banking expert Kelleher and Dutch retail banking ace Hamers can certainly be seen as a promising combination. When it comes to the main problem, selling loss-making CS investment banking, there are probably few bankers who have more know-how than VR President Kelleher, says Balance Sheet editor-in-chief Dirk Schütz. He also knows the American market very well. Hamers also knows how to fork. As head of the Dutch ING, he had to sell the entire insurance business during his tenure.

Integrating Credit Suisse into domestic retail banking represents another major challenge, Schütz continues. But Hamers is the perfect man here, since retail banking is his core area and he also managed a huge bank in the Netherlands with ING. In terms of overcoming the major merger challenges, Kelleher and Hamers are therefore the right people. Schütz even speaks of the “ideal duo”.

A shortcoming? The lack of “Swissness”, on the other hand, can be seen as a downer for future megabank management. However, one can fundamentally question how much “Swissness” will still exist in the strongly internationally active UBS in the future. Arguing like this, one could say that the new leadership reflects the international megabank accordingly. After all, CEO Hamers speaks excellent High German after a good two years in Switzerland.

What will become of the current CS leadership? With the takeover of CS by UBS, CS Chairman Axel Lehmann and Managing Director Ulrich Körner at the top of the group have had their day. After the thankless task of restructuring the big bank, they now have the even more thankless task of keeping the business running and handing it over to UBS as smoothly as possible. It would theoretically be possible to remain in the UBS group, but it is rather unlikely, even though Lehmann previously worked for UBS for years.