After eschewing the top job at Unicredit, ex-Credit Suisse boss Tidjane Thiam is teaming up with a long-standing associate at the Swiss bank in his next chapter.
Tidjane Thiam will join up with U.S.-based investment manager Pimco on a $250 million special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, according to «Bloomberg» (behind paywall). Thiam is the latest banker after ex-UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti and former Commerzbank boss Martin Blessing to get in on the latest lucrative Wall Street boom.
The 58-year-old French-Ivorian banker is enlisting Adam Gishen, a senior adviser at Credit Suisse and in charge of communications and investor relations, to run the SPAC, the U.S. outlet reported, while Thiam will be executive chairman. Gishen followed Thiam from Prudential (where Gishen was consulting for investment banking boutique Ondra Partners) to Credit Suisse.
More Lucrative Than Banking
Like nearly all of Thiam's so-called shadow cabinet, Gishen left Credit Suisse shortly after his boss was ousted as CEO nearly one year ago. Thiam reportedly eschewed the top job at Unicredit, which ultimately went to ex-UBS top banker Andrea Orcel pending approval by shareholders in April.
One reason to do so is that SPACs, once relegated to a dusty cormer of Wall Street, are hugely lucrative. The controversial template from Wall Street is to create a shell company, seek a public listing for it, and then use the money raised through the listing to merge with an actual business.
Shadow Cabinet Dissolved
Thiam has been busy since leaving Credit Suisse last February: Thiam joined the board of French luxury goods firm Kering, is pitching in on the African Union's fight against coronavirus, popped up as part of an Élysée plan for Côte d'Ivoire, and was elected chair of Rwanda Finance, an organization devoted to the development and promotion of the Kigali as a financial center.
Nearly all of his close allies at Credit Suisse are gone, save for Mindy Silverstein, who according to LinkedIn remains a senior adviser to Thiam's CEO successor, Thomas Gottstein. Thiam's closest ally, Pierre-Olivier Bouée, has moved to New York as consulting firm Capgemini's chief sales officer for financial services.
