After the war, Credit Suisse was shaped by three generations of bankers. They almost lost the first generation, they shipped the second to America, and they drove the third to ruin. A panopticon of failure.
When Credit Suisse acquired a majority stake in the New York investment bank First Boston in 1990, Olympus seemed to have been reached. Wall Street, 1991.
Once or twice a year, the heads of the three big banks in Switzerland met in a hut in the woods. Depending on the requirements, around six directors-general took part, no assistants disturbed, no advisors buzzed around in the back, instead there was an atmosphere between scout and WK, serious and yet adventurous, which was only too familiar to most participants. Certainly half, if not more, of the gentlemen served as officers in the Swiss Army, usually of higher rank; some knew each other from the general staff, others from the OS – if war had broken out now, the big banks in Switzerland would have mobilized themselves in the forest immediately.
