"This is more than a richly detailed story about the hubris, corruption and incompetence that doomed Credit Suisse; it's a stark warning to all of us about what happens when we let bankers do what they like" - Oliver Bullough, bestselling author of Butler to the World
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For centuries, Swiss banks have served the globe's wealthiest individuals, employing a strict culture of anonymity and gaining massive wealth in the process. But when Credit Suisse collapsed, the veil of secrecy came down and the world was suddenly privy to the corruption, scandal and empty hubris that keep our biggest banks alive.
It was a 166-year-old bastion of Swiss banking, amongst the most important and influential financial institutions in the world – but a veneer of high-class service disguised a darker, dirtier reality. From its sterile Zurich headquarters, the bank catered to a clientele that included dictators, drug dealers and former Nazi officers, and helped fleece its own clients out of billions of dollars. This continued for decades, even as Credit Suisse continued to expand, acquiring smaller banks and granting its own executives lucrative bonus contracts.
Meltdown is the story of how the house of cards fell apart. Bloomberg investigative journalist and bestselling author of Pyramid of Lies Duncan Mavin takes readers inside the bank's hushed marble corridors, detailing its secretive culture and the series of increasingly selfish decisions, made by a handful of men at the top, which ultimately led to disaster.
This is the fascinating history of one of the biggest financial institutions of our times - and a thrilling exposé of the wider financial services sector - which promises to give readers a shocking and brutally honest look into a previously-unknown world of greed, lies and unrelenting human ambition.
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"We're used by now to bankers behaving badly, but Duncan Mavin takes it to another shocking, anger-inducing level. Credit Suisse stood for priority, but he shows this to be a total fabrication" - Chris Blackhurst, former editor of The Independent and bestselling author of Too Big to Jail
Duncan Mavin is the author of Pyramid of Lies: Lex Greensill and the Billion Dollar-Scandal and a journalist at The Washington Post, based in the UK. He was previously a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, working in Asia, the US and across Europe, and a chartered accountant in the City.
His previous book, Pyramid of Lies, was a critically acclaimed bestseller. It was one of Waterstones' political books of the year for 2022 and an Observer book of the week. It was excerpted in The Times, the Mail on Sunday and the Australian media. He has appeared on several radio and television shows, as well as at literary festivals, to discuss the book and the fallout of the Greensill scandal it describes. The book has been optioned for both documentary and dramatic rights. The exclusive story of a once-venerable Swiss bank that produced a conveyor belt of financial scandals and ultimately folded - by Washington Post reporter Duncan Mavin.
