RE the CEO of Julius Bäer

No confirmation from the bosses, according to someone who works there

However, here is an excerpt from 20 mins (not the most reliable financial paper), but also apparently in NZZ...

http://www.20min.ch/finance/news/sto...angen-14374681



Julius-Bär-Chef hat Selbstmord begangen

von Lukas Hässig
Alex Widmer hat sich in der Nacht auf gestern das Leben genommen. Die Börse hat auf die Todesnachricht sofort reagiert: Die Bär-Aktie tauchte. Ob die wirtschaftliche Situation der Bank zum Selbstmord führte, ist aber nicht bekannt.

No. 20 Minuten is the only publication claiming it was suicide.

You must get out of Swissieland more, figuratively speaking.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cd2f84a0-c...077b07658.html

"No cause of death was given, but Mr Wider is believed to have taken his own life."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1228...googlenews_wsj

"A spokesman declined to comment on the circumstances of Mr. Widmer's death, which a person familiar with the circumstances told Dow Jones Newswires was suicide."

Oh, and even the Tagi knows:

http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/wirtscha...story/17592239

"In Zürcher Finanzkreisen heisst es, Widmer habe Selbstmord begangen."

I meant to say that only 20 Minuten writes upfront that he took his own life. The other newspapers report it as speculation or rumour.

Suicide is a sad thing. If truely a suicide could be all sorts of reasons.
Tough for friends & family to understand and cope with.

If it was linked to the bank crisis he would not be the first; there was that English guy who lost 250million on UBS shares.

Marton

“In the spring we announced a global head-count reduction initiative for the investment bank and all other business divisions and additional head-count cuts for the IB in the fall,” UBS spokesman Kris Kagel

What will happen to the B-Permit holders that lose their jobs. Did a good search in the forum regarding this. Didn't have any luck.

If I understand things correctly, you can stay here looking for work until your permit expires. If you have an EU/EFTA B permit, you will still be able to renew it for a year at a time; for other B-permit holders, you can only renew it if you are "able to draw a daily allowance from the unemployment insurance" (and you're not guaranteed to be able to renew it even if you are).

Umm, no.

You are entitled to a permit until your unemployment payments stop. THe unemployment office becomes effectively your employer.

Truely a suicide by hanging.

It was not.

I had an ex-colleague EU/B-Permit holder who lost his job. He was single & living in an apartment. He collected unemployment benefit for around 1 year & was sent on some courses paid by the State e.g. German language. I got the impression he quite enjoyed it; eventually he decided to go back to UK & do some advanced study. Of course, probably different if you have a family & suffer a big income drop.

Marton

With a non-Eu/ B-Permit, you are paid the same amount as your salary for the first three months while you search for a new job(word of mouth). Is that true? If so, if you couldn't find a job within this span, you'll have to rely on unemployment benefits until your permit exists. After which, you'll have to pack your bags provided you've got enough left to buy your family air tickets."Save more. Spend less" does sound reasonable now!!

100K CHF now protected sine yesterday

Oh, I did get some info that seemed to say that, and I did double-check with admin.ch before posting; the latter says that an EU/EFTA permit is for people who are resident in Switzerland "with or without gainful employment" and then states that "On the occasion of its first renewal, however, the permit can be limited to one year if the holder has been involuntarily unemployed for more than twelve consecutive months." Sure looks to me as if you can renew it even if you're unemployed (even if admin.ch is a bit ambigous on whether you can renew it more than once).

By whom?
Even the State does not have reserves that big?

& the bank "reserve fund" is not so big

Marton

Nobody said you can't renew it. You can renew it for as long as you're entitled to unemployment benefits, which is not necessarily translated as sine die one year at a time... Remember that the right to residence is conditioned by proof of financial resources, EU citizen or not...

The insolvency "reserve fund" is certainly inadequate. All Swiss Banks must pitch in to ensure that depositors of the insolvent bank get their 100k. The Swiss National Bank must contribute, too.

There is some talk of an insurance scheme. Maybe something like the catastrophe-bonds, which re-insurers sell to cover costs of extraordinary negative events.

Germany, for example, has unrestricted depositor protection!

The purpose of a protection "scheme" is to prevent a run on banks, not to actually provide 100% liquidity should such a run actually happen.

Do you think any insurance company has enough reserves should the claim-to-policy ratio go up to 1?

Come on man, I thought you were "in the business".

That is why you have to select carefully the company that you buy your insurance from. I certainly believe Switzerland is better placed than many countries.
As somebody wrote; 11th is the day & we got -0.5% today.

Marton

Does this mean that the SMI will go up and the CHF will strengthen against the EUR? (I'm having a lesson in finance; by the way, if anybody needs to know about mammalian cell fermentation - feel free to ask )

In reality it's all psychological... public proclaims to prevent the masses from withdrawing en masse. If you look at the numbers alone, in all their stark and nude beauty, you just realize that it is virtually impossible to "insure" anything, insurance being just a mediocre exercise in dubious statistics...

The only reason the whole world hasn't freaked out (yet) is that humans are beasts of habit - they will keep on buying their bread and butter and behaving along the lines of what has been learned over their cumulative lifetime. Inertia, if you wish, is what is keeping this ship on some sort of "course". Let's hope the engineers fix the motors and rudder soon, or else....

Ciao
Paul