Show's Over, Go Home

On the off chance that some of you care and want yet more articles on CSFB, I've trawled the internet for them. So here goes two more from the FT: here and here. This quote from Reuters is pretty upbeat quoting Brady Dougan as saying that CSFB will get back up with the big boys: MS and GS.

"Credit Suisse yesterday announced an overhaul of its business. The changes included a shake-up of its investment bank, a planned flotation of insurer Winterthur, and dropping of the Credit Suisse First Boston name. Roughly 300 jobs will go as part of the shake-up. CSFB chief executive Brady Dougan said the company will continue to compete with "bulge bracket" companies such as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. It intends to create a unified proprietary trading desk and invest in prime brokerage, which services hedge funds."

Yet another article again from Reuters, is worth a read, but is re-hashing whats already been said. I'm just after noticing a pattern in names! Morgan Stanley (MS) and Goldman Sachs (GS) are probably two of the top IB's around. CSFB with its tongue twister name has only been doing so so recently. I think the reason behind it is simply because of its name. The comment in this FT article backs me up.

"On the sensitive issue of branding, Mr Grübel hinted strongly that the venerable First Boston name would be dropped, but declined to say when."

Having the company called Credit Suisse or CS makes it easier to confuse it with one of the two big boys! Its a cunning but surprisingly simple plan to dupe clients into thinking CSFB are the best around, which, in actual fact they are! Either that, or they just want to consolidate the group! I'm going with the simple name change!

My friend e-mailed me this morning and said that having watched the live webcast of the presentations, he's not worried. He said some reporter actually asked might it create more work in technology because of the realignment of the business but they didn't give a direct answer.

So, that little blip on the radar screen, has passed and I dont think I need to worry about that anymore. My search for a new blogging topic goes on!