ALEX BRUMMER: It’s hard to see Credit Suisse salvaging its reputation

The ambition of the frayed management at Credit Suisse is to leave casino banking behind and make a comeback as an asset manager. It may not seem like an impossible task.

After all, competitor UBS is back in full health after admitting to large-scale tax evasion in the US on behalf of its clients in 2009.

But the idea that somehow Credit Suisse will one day again be a trusted name for safekeeping the savings of the world’s wealthy is imaginative.

The super-rich around the world decided to pull an astounding £100bn of funds from the Swiss bank in the last three months of the year as confidence in its survival faded.

There is no shortage of other more entrenched companies such as Goldman Sachs, which is taking a major step forward in European asset management and offering safer havens.

That may be more valuable to Europe’s financial elite than the tax breaks that once gave the leprechauns of Zurich an edge.

Chief executive Ulrich Koerner’s turnaround plan involves spun off investment banking to focus on managing money.

But with such a staggering outflow, there are big questions about whether Credit Suisse, which raised new capital in November, has a good future.

As part of the reconstruction plan, investment banking is rolling out.

It recently spent £135m buying the consultancy boutique from a former board member.

There is still a long way to go for the investment bank, as trading income was just £12.5 million last year.

The idea of ​​a new Credit Suisse First Boston rising like a phoenix from the ashes and being sold for a pot of gold may be wishful thinking.

The damage done by a series of scandals, including a disastrous relationship with British company Greensill, is staggering.

Soriot démarche

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Confederation of British Industry’s budget submission called for investment deductions to compensate for the colossal increase in corporate tax from 19% to 25%.

Director-General Tony Danker argued that the combination of a sharp rise in corporate taxes and the timed end of Rishi Sunak’s ‘super deduction’ (tax relief on new spending on factories, IT and the like) would have a ‘massive impact’ on investment .

It’s quite another when the call for a change of course comes from the British life sciences champion.

Under Pascal Soriot’s ten-year leadership, AstraZeneca has transformed from a laggard into one of the world’s largest and most innovative life sciences companies.

The public knows it best as the pharmaceutical group that embraced the Oxford-Jenner Covid vaccine. In pharma, it is known for its immunological treatments for cancer, high spending on research and development, and a pipeline of new drugs.

When Soriot says he wants to invest £333 million in a new manufacturing facility in Ireland because the UK tax rate is so daunting, Jeremy Hunt has to listen.

After all, without Soriot’s energetic defense of Astra’s independence, despite Pfizer’s bid, the British company would be little more than an offshoot of the American giant – the Cambridge research center a forgotten dream.

Astra’s progress has been phenomenal: a 25 per cent increase in sales to £37 billion last year and a profit of £2.1 billion. It expects higher revenues in 2023, despite investments in 30 trials of new compounds.

The government will destroy Britain’s chances of breaking out of the curse of sub-optimal productivity unless it takes action to push fiscal reforms into the budget.

Russian standoff

When Unilever boss Alan Jope found himself in dire straits over ice operations in the West Bank, he challenged Ben & Jerry’s board and quickly separated the group from the dispute by selling the business to the Israeli distributor.

Compare the speed with which it has untied that political knot to its failure to cut ties with Russia, where it racked up £750m in revenue last year and earned £147m.

Jope is concerned about the fate of her 3,500 employees. Admirable as that may be, he and his colleagues must come to terms with the fact that the Kremlin is engaged in a brutal war and hard decisions must be made.

If tobacco giant BAT, which controlled 25 percent of the Russian smoking market, can pull out, as just announced, so can Unilever.