Look I suppose that if you are the biggest shareholder of a somewhat beleaguered bank and someone asks you on television “would you throw more money into this bank,” and the actual answer is “no we can’t,” you should not say “yes.” Everything is securities fraud, etc. But … you should not … say “no”? You certainly should not say “absolutely not”? “We believe strongly in Credit Suisse, we are in close contact with management, and we ourselves have access to tons of cash”: Nothing in that sentence is a lie, it does not actually answer the question, and yet it sounds like it does? It sounds vaguely confidence-inspiring? I thought of that in three seconds? You could probaby do better if it was your money on the line?
We just got through discussing the fact that the
immediate cause of SVB’s downfall was that it announced that it was raising equity without having buyers lined up. If you are Credit Suisse’s biggest shareholder, why would you just go around saying “hey FYI if Credit Suisse needs to raise equity, it won’t have us as a buyer”? Not helpful!
Anyway,
yeesh:
