End of the journey for fast car fanatic
IN EARLY 2009 Oswald Gruebel was retired and basking in the glow of leading Credit Suisse’s drive to shed its image as an accident-prone and under-achieving bank.
Fast forward two-and-a-half years and his name has lost its lustre, to be forever associated with that of Kweku Adoboli, whose alleged fraud cost UBS $2.3bn (£1.5bn).
It is a sad end for the German, now 67, who was brought out of retirement in 2009 when UBS was creaking under the weight of vast losses on toxic assets and a damaging scandal surrounding allegations that bankers helped rich clients to dodge taxes.
A war orphan brought up by his grandparents, Gruebel was the archetypal trader, plunging straight into banking when he was just 17 by taking an apprenticeship at Deutsche Bank without having been to university.
His success gave him the chance to indulge his love of Formula One but this weekend, at the Singapore Grand Prix, which was sponsored by UBS, his stop-start journey finally came to a halt.