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So, ex- @DeutscheBank CEO Joe Ackermann gave Swiss broadcaster SRF an interview last week. I watched the entire half-hour (it took me several tries to get through it). I have...thoughts. https://twitter.com/srfnews/status/1264979796284436481
Ackermann is now 72. It’s been eight years since he ran Deutsche Bank. Since then, there was a brief, hugely damaging stint at Zurich Insurance, as well as a five-year run as chairman of Bank of Cyprus.
Bank of Cyprus' biggest shareholder is Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian oligarch under U.S. sanctions since 2018.
Cyprus, the country, runs a controversial citizenship-by-investment scheme. People like Hun Sen (Cambodian strongman) and Jho Low have reportedly used it.
Cyprus, the country, runs a controversial citizenship-by-investment scheme. People like Hun Sen (Cambodian strongman) and Jho Low have reportedly used it.
On #Cyprus, taxes, citizenship-by-investment (or CBI as bankers call it), or Russian money, this piece from earlier this month by @Mikepeeljourno is a must-read: https://www.ft.com/content/67918012-9403-11ea-abcd-371e24b679ed
Anyway, back to Ackermann, who is at a point where he wants to tell his story: his reputation is tarnished by @DeutscheBank repeatedly showing up in investigations on everything from mirror trades to rate-rigging to Trump loans.
As an outlet, @srfnews is a safe bet as opposed to, say, @derspiegel. Unfortunately, there are few real insights. However there are a few times I went “seriously?,” at both interviewer and interviewee.
First of all, the framing of Ackermann – who loved being part of the @IIF and having Merkel on speed-dial during the 08/09 crisis – as an expert now on #coronavirus and Swiss government help for @FlySWISS is...editorially questionable.
It allows his tenure, which is being shredded to bits right now, to stand unquestioned.
But anyway, he's asked about @CreditSuisse (Ackermann fell out with then-chairman, Rainer E. Gut, over a failed merger with a @UBS predecessor. He left Switzerland, for Deutsche, in 96).
But anyway, he's asked about @CreditSuisse (Ackermann fell out with then-chairman, Rainer E. Gut, over a failed merger with a @UBS predecessor. He left Switzerland, for Deutsche, in 96).
Asked about @CreditSuisse and #spygate, Ackermann says he would never have enlisted private surveillance on someone who left, and hadn’t ever experienced anything like it in his time in the financial services industry.
On pay and bonuses in investment banking, I had to laugh when two of his arguments were that private equity executives earn a lot more and nobody complains, and that he had been sensitive to the political tone back in 2008 (narrator: he was not).
He is generally not hugely capable of self-reflection: he concedes that he himself is to blame for his reputation as a ruthless capitalist at all costs, but then plows into a round of self-congratulatory mentions of his resuscitation of Deutsche Bank in the late 1990s.
Of @DeutscheBank's ROE target of 25 percent – of which the @newrepublic wrote, "In hindsight, it seems obvious that demanding a 25 percent return on equity would have caused an omnidirectional, ruptured-sewer-main spray of crime." – Ackermann is unapologetic.
The most revealing moment is right at the end, when he drops a bombshell after he’s asked about something else entirely (millennials). This would have been a wonderful point to start the conversation...
...a 72-year-old former titan of the industry who is seeing his contemporaries pass (like Marcel Ospel, who was in the process of telling his side of the 08/09 story to NZZ when he died last month) wants to talk, and his thirst to do so is poignant.
One thing @finews_ch has taught me is to ask about people’s beginnings: their parents, their values, etc. THEY WILL TALK.
Ackermann says "for sure, coming from a small village into another world entirely, I wanted to prove myself, and I was very impatient and very demanding."
Ackermann says "for sure, coming from a small village into another world entirely, I wanted to prove myself, and I was very impatient and very demanding."
"One mellows as one gets older..." and then he goes on to answer the question about millennials.
Disappointingly, there is not one mention of Trump and @DeutscheBank in the entire convo, nor any of the other problems it is now beset with, most from Ackermann's era.
As an journo you absolutely don't have the luxury of getting that little flicker of vulnerability when you need it, but it's reckless to just ignore the controversial stuff and treat him as an elder statesman of banking.
The big reveal on the whole 30-min shebang is that a high-flyer who loved every second of it – even the ugly Mannesmann stuff – absolutely didn't get the second act he wanted. He's still looking for it! He misses the power and attention! Just, nobody cares much anymore ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
OK this thread was fin before, but @dsquareddigest rightly points to this 28.05.2009 story on @DeutscheBank's very own #spygate – I mean WTF. https://www.dw.com/en/deutsche-bank-spying-scandal-widens/a-4287967
