The big story in the market has been the humbling of Indian conglomerate Adani. Who could have guessed? But the real issue isn’t that a company may have fooled the market over its value, but that the market never worked out how improbable the valuations were. Time to check up on risk management!
Risk does not disappear. It hides in plain sight – as the investment industry will increasingly discover as crises mounts. Fortunately, there are SOB’s who have seen it before and are too aged to panic…
Markets were shaken but unstirred by the collapse of Greensill and the Archegos unwind trades. Credit Suisse is the ultimate loser of the two scandals – reputationally damaged and holed below the water line. The bank is paying the price of years of flawed management, poor risk awareness. and its self-belief it was still a Tier 1 global player. Its’ challenge is to avoid becoming the Deutsche Bank of Switzerland – which it will struggle to do without a radical and unlikely shakeout.
