Swiss roll over
IT is rare enough to get a good laugh, or even a good lunch, out of a Swiss bank, so the Union Bank of Switzerland is not attracting the sympathy it might expect. Here is this great Matterhorn of money, with the highest credit rating that a bank can have, run by the senior officers of the Swiss army, apparently impregnable — and now what happens? A rebel shareholder turns up and rattles the board, and its chairman has to admit that he has been talking to his rival across the road about a merger. Such an admission can never be un-made. UBS in the marriage market, a stormy meeting in Zurich this week, the rebel repelled by a narrow majority — how very untidy (in Switzerland, a capital offence). I even hear it suggested that this big Swiss bank ought to be making more money. Just keep a straight face at that.
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