The retired Morgan Stanley heavyweight and former Co-CEO of Credit Suisse has mixed feelings about his former employer. Still, he is full of praise for UBS's current chairman, saying he is the right person to handle a large-scale, complex merger.

John Mack is a Wall Street giant. His biography pretty well sums things up. «My life is perfect. I have f---ing killed it. I knocked the cover off the ball in the financial world»?

He certainly managed to do that at Morgan Stanley, taking it from a 300-strong equity and bond house exclusively for a blue-chip clientele to an international financial institution with 50,000 staff.

Mack the Knife

But his career also brought him to Credit Suisse. He was appointed as Co-CEO in June 2001, where his feared, incisive cost cuts prompted him to be dubbed «Mack the Knife».

He is known as a close working colleague of Colm Kelleher, the UBS chair since April last year. Yet before making the jump, the Oxford University graduate had, like Mack, spent his entire career at Morgan Stanley.

First-Class Leader

The UBS chairman is a first-class leader, Mack indicated, full of praise for his former cohort in an interview with «Bloomberg TV».

In detail, he discussed Kelleher's management during the financial crisis in 2008 when Morgan Stanley faced default. According to him, he managed to keep his leadership onboard who were close to panicking. «He calmed them down. I gave him a little bit of help on that but he did it. He's a natural leader,» Mack told Bloomberg. 

Complicated Task

Mack is also convinced he is the man for the task that currently awaits him in Switzerland. Still, it should be kept in mind that it is not much more than premature praise for an erstwhile confidant.

The only thing that is undisputable is that Kelleher faces the complex task of landing the merger of both institutions after the Credit Suisse rescue was announced last Sunday. A failure for the country's last major global bank is not an option.

Hard Work

The takeover is expected to have a positive impact on UBS's earnings per share by 2027 at the latest which means, in essence, that UBS will be digesting its former rival for the next four years.

Plans to expand in wealth management and further digitalize its business will fall by the wayside while also darkening prospects of higher dividends for shareholders.

Stupidest People

Mack also looks back on his past at Credit Suisse with mixed feelings.

At the time, he worked with the other Co-CEO Oswald Gruebel to restructure the bank's retail private banking and insurance businesses. The partnership worked as both alpha males managed to constrain themselves and neither was interested in becoming the sole CEO.

He marked his tenure with a certain amount of irony. «They said I'm the most arrogant person (that) they had ever met. And I said (they) were the stupidest people I ever dealt with. So we had a great relationship.»

No Liar

They got rid of him as soon as his contract was up. Or as he says they «shot me». Strong, blunt words from a man whose subtitle on his biography reads «Life Lessons from a Wall Street Warrior» where he goes on to tell his readers that he never lies.