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Farewell after eight and a half months: António Horta-Osório
had to step down as Chairman of Credit Suisse.
Photo: LEON NEAL / AFP
It is one thing to philosophize verbosely about yourself, about your own urge to always do good and act responsibly.
Always emphasizing what was drummed into you as a Jesuit student.
António Horta-Osório
(57), longtime head of the British Lloyds Bank, has achieved a certain mastery in this.
It is something completely different to align one's actions accordingly - even if it just doesn't fit into the concept at all. That's exactly what he failed at. And that's why his time as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Credit Suisse has become a short episode, a small footnote in the history of the second largest Swiss bank. The Portuguese banker had to resign after just eight and a half months.
He came at the end of April 2021. He wanted to end the Credit Suisse scandal series. The risk management there failed several times on a large scale and brought massive losses to the institute. There was also a corruption scandal and the shadowing of former top managers. Horta-Osósrio wanted to establish a new corporate culture so that something like this would not happen again, so that business and morals could be better combined.
Instead, he caused another scandal for the bank.
He is said to have disregarded corona rules and quarantine requirements at least twice – including on a trip to London in July to watch the Wimbledon final.
In November he traveled from London to Zurich within three days and flew on again, although a ten-day quarantine was planned.
Deep fall of a knight
None of this happened on purpose, he says.
At the same time, according to information from a Swiss newspaper, he is said to have inquired about special regulations to avoid the ten-day quarantine.
He was informed that there would be no preferential treatment for him.
If so, the man has lost his judgment.
Because he couldn't have signaled more clearly in this case: The rules are there for everyone, just not for me.
Horta-Osório has made a name for himself as an assertive manager, above all with the rescue of Lloyds - as someone who makes radical decisions without hesitation and also implements them.
The British government was later able to sell its shares in the bank, which had faltered during the financial crisis, at a profit.
The queen knighted Horta-Osório.
During his time at Lloyds, he made negative headlines primarily with an extramarital affair.
He apologized very quickly for that.
And later also spoke openly about his mistake and asserted that he had learned from it.
Horta-Osório squinted at the chairmanship?
That the man at Credit Suisse would now fail due to such banalities as the Corona requirements was not expected even by those he knew.
Some thought other reasons were more likely - for example that he was struggling with his role as head of the board of directors, might prefer to become chairman of the board and would replace
Thomas Gottstein
(58).
None of that happened.
Mervyn King
, the former head of the Bank of England, once described Horta-Osório's services to Lloyds as follows: The Portuguese turned the partially nationalized institute from a burden for taxpayers into an asset. At Credit Suisse, Horta-Osório's development was exactly the opposite. He was trusted to restore the bank to its former glory. Instead, it has become a burden. And that was back in November, when the bank began investigating its chairman’s second violation of corona rules. Even then, it was time for an apology and a reasonably stylish retreat. Apparently it was pressure from shareholders that finally brought about this step.
Axel Lehmann
(63) is now taking over the chairmanship of the board of directors at Credit Suisse, a former UBS top manager.
Calm, conscientious, rather colorless - that's how he is described by former colleagues.
This is quite an alternative to Horta-Osório, possibly the right solution for a short transitional period.
Not more.