UBS sells escapade plane – economy

When the major Swiss bank UBS became its stumbling competitor in March Credit Suisse swallowed, there was a lot of talk about culture. A culture that was too risk-conscious had brought down Credit Suisse, or CS for short, and now it has to end. Instead, what is needed is a culture of modesty and security.

Since then, UBS has been trying to show that it stands for precisely this security. A good plan, after all the merger gave it the title of “monster bank”. Their balance sheet total exceeds the gross domestic product of the Switzerland clearly. That makes them a risk for the country, which saw in March that you can’t just let big banks go bankrupt.

The latest news from the house UBS That’s why the bank comes in handy, even though it doesn’t want to comment when asked: According to research by the Financial Times sold the Credit Suisse corporate jet. As the British newspaper writes, the Dassault Falcon 7X aircraft was sold in recent weeks to a German subsidiary of the French bank Société Générale. Purchase price unknown.

So is UBS clearing up the luxury escapades of the former scandalous bank Credit Suisse? After all, the business jet is not just anyone. The plane was used by, among others, António Horta-Osório, the Portuguese-British manager who was Chairman of the Board of Directors of Credit Suisse between April 2021 and January 2022. During his short time in office, Horta-Osório managed to produce several scandals. And almost every time, that’s what she writes Financial Timesthe problems had to do with the Falcon jet.

The manager didn’t take the Corona rules all that seriously

It started in July 2021 when Horta-Osório flew to England for the Wimbledon final and the final of the European Football Championship. He managed to attend both events with the Credit Suisse jet – even though he actually had to go into Corona quarantine. A few months later, in November, he broke the Corona rules a second time: after a flight from Great Britain to Switzerland he was supposed to stay in quarantine for ten days, but he left Switzerland again just three days later. Credit Suisse had both incidents investigated at the time, and Horta-Osório resigned in January 2022 after the investigation report was published.

Citing flight data, the reports Financial Times now about a third escapade with the Falcon jet: Horta-Osório apparently persuaded the crew to make a stopover in the Maldives on a business trip from Singapore to Zurich, where his family was vacationing. Remarkable behavior for someone who spoke in interviews of “a culture of personal responsibility” and said sentences like: “Every banker must be a risk manager at heart.”

Now this famous Credit Suisse plane is history. But even if that fits very well with the narrative of a solidly operating UBS: Credit Suisse managers had already made the decision to sell the jet. Bank circles say that the plans had been made long before UBS took over Credit Suisse.