Philipp
Hildebrand discussed buying dollars with his adviser at Bank Sarasin on the day
his wife made a currency trade that led to his resignation as chief of
Switzerland’s central bank, documents show. An e-mail by Hildebrand disputes
that account.
 |
| Philipp Hildebrand |
Felix
Scheuber, a relationship manager at Sarasin, said Hildebrand told him to
“consider increasing his USD exposure,” though he would “leave it up to his
wife Kashya to so decide,” according to a document titled “Client Contact
Report,” dated Aug. 15, 2011. Later that day, Kashya Hildebrand instructed
Scheuber to buy $504,000.
Last week,
the 48-year-old former hedge fund manager vowed to stay on as the country’s
central bank head, saying he had e- mails that proved Kashya Hildebrand acted
independently. “My word is my bond,” he said yesterday in his resignation
speech in Bern, telling journalists that his wife instructed Bank Sarasin to
make the trade, which went through three weeks before the Swiss National Bank limited the franc’s exchange rate in its biggest policy intervention in three
decades.
The
e-mails, posted yesterday on the SNB’s website, offer two conflicting stories
and show why Hildebrand couldn’t provide the definitive record he needed to
keep his job.
In an
e-mail to his wife and the client adviser at 7:36 a.m. on Aug. 16, the day
after the trade, Hildebrand disputed Scheuber’s account, saying he was “surprised”
at the “reference to a dollar transaction in your e-mail. We never discussed
any dollar purchases yesterday.”
‘Special
Case’
In a reply
at 8 a.m., Scheuber went back to the previous day’s discussion. “I also
remember you saying in our yesterday’s conversation that if Kashya wants to
increase the USD exposure then it is fine with you,” Scheuber wrote.
In the
e-mail on Aug. 16, Hildebrand told Scheuber that he wouldn’t authorize future
transactions of that type. For “compliance reasons, you are not authorized to
execute any currency transactions unless the order comes from me or I confirm
it,” he wrote. “I need to know and sign off on any trades that Kashya might
instruct you on,” he said.
“PS:
Kashya: sorry about that but currencies really are a special case here,” he
wrote.
Benedikt
Gratzl, a spokesman for Sarasin, told Bloomberg News that the documents are
“accurate,” while declining to comment further.
“I’ve come
to the conclusion that it is impossible for me to provide final, definitive
proof that my wife carried out the transactions without my knowledge,”
Hildebrand said yesterday.
To contact
the reporter on this story: Leigh Baldwin in Zurich at lbaldwin3@bloomberg.net
To contact
the editor responsible for this story: Craig Stirling at cstirling1@bloomberg.net
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