The UBS CEO-Go-Round Continues

Five years ago, Credit Suisse had two co-CEOs: Oswald Gruebel and John Mack. Neither of them is still at the company, but neither has exactly fallen in stature: Mack's now running Morgan Stanley, while Gruebel has just been named the new head of UBS.

UBS just can't seem to win, these days. Its current CEO, Marcel Rohner, has only been in the job a couple of years -- and he himself was clearly a Plan B after Plan A, Luqman Arnold, failed to work out as expected. Rohner was seen as a man who could re-orient UBS towards its private-banking roots in the wake of serious distress at the investment bank -- but then came a series of private-banking scandals, including the unprecedented handing over of hundreds and possibly even thousands of client names to the US tax authorities. After that, Rohner was never going to last long.

Gruebel is 65 years old, so he too is unlikely to stay long in this poisoned job. And if the story of his predecessors is anything to go by, he'll probably be fired quite suddenly. I trust he has his exit package sewn up already.