The banker said he decided to use some of the extra profits to cover losses a pair of his other, smaller clients had suffered earlier.
He felt a special loyalty to the two Russian gas-industry executives, he said, because they’d been among the first big clients he’d recruited himself.
No Tolerance
With about 200 million dollars between them at the bank, according to the banker, they were smaller fry than Ivanishvili but “they always expected big profits and they wouldn’t tolerate losses.”
They’d lost at least $17 million in 2007-2008 on Meinl European Land Ltd., an Austrian real-estate stock they said was pushed heavily by Credit Suisse, according to their lawyer, Giorgio Campa.
The banker said he made up for their losses by taking about $60 million in profits from the unauthorized trading on Ivanishvili’s accounts and transferring it to them.
“Neither the parties nor our internal services noticed the transactions,” he told bank investigators after he was exposed.
Still, the stress of the deceit and his work began to take a personal toll. His wife encouraged him to quit, he said.
Nonetheless, his business took off and new clients flooded in. He became one of Credit Suisse’s most successful bankers, according to people familiar with the situation.
Despite the gains, he was reprimanded at least once, for providing inadequate documentation, which cost him a promotion to managing director, according to a person familiar with the bank’s investigation. But his deception wasn’t exposed.