In the City: Why Credit Suisse Was a Magnet for Scandals

Leaders with Francine Lacqua

Bloomberg

Management, Business, Careers, Entrepreneurship

4.6 • 64 Ratings

🗓️ 2 January 2025

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2023, Credit Suisse collapsed, shaking the foundations of the global banking establishment. But for onlookers who were aware of the lender’s numerous afflictions, it’s sudden demise was no surprise at all. From one perspective, the bank’s succession of scandals arguably started as early as its founding some 167 years ago.

One of those observers who saw it coming was Bloomberg editor Duncan Mavin, author of Meltdown: Greed, Scandal, and the Collapse of Credit Suisse. Mavin has covered banking malfeasance for more than a decade, which in Europe necessarily involved Credit Suisse on an almost regular basis. In this episode of In The City, Mavin sits down with hosts Francine Lacqua and David Merritt to discuss his book and some of the lesser-known crises at the Swiss bank that led to its downfall.

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Transcript

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1:01.8	Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts, Radio News. David, for anyone that questions my dedication
1:09.4	to covering global finance for Bloomberg, I have a statistic for you.
1:13.9	I'm sure no one dares question that, Francine, but hit me. What's the stat?
1:17.2	Since 2014, Credit Suisse C-suite, mainly chief executives and chairman, have given me around 37 interviews.
1:25.6	So we show up at every quarter to speak to them. We had many exclusives
1:28.9	with various chief executives to trying to understand what was going on. And then boom, it got
1:33.9	taken over. I mean, that's got to be some sort of record, hasn't it, in terms of the number of
1:38.3	interviews. It also tells you a bit about the company, though, doesn't it? Because there was so
1:41.0	much going on, so much to report on. I mean, you had to chase the chief executives, the chief financial officers to try and explain or defend, perhaps, what was happening? Probably defend. I mean, look, there were a lot of scandals. And so we tried to keep on top of the story. And I remember sometimes in certain interviews, I kept on thinking at the back of my mind, this would be a great Netflix show, but it's a book. Maybe it should be a Netflix show one day.
	...

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