New York-based Australians like Wylie, Hansen, Malcolm Price and Alastair Walton – later appointed by Turnbull to be Australia’s consul-general in New York – were also joining the firm in the United States. One by one, they moved back to Australia in the early 1990s.
Jenrette, known – as First Boston was – for its capabilities in riskier leveraged finance. The acquisition propelled Credit Suisse into the upper echelons of private equity-backed financing. The noughties saw Credit Suisse increasingly bank wealthy local clients, with those relationships boosting its MA business. The Swiss bank logged millions-of-dollars in fees thanks to iron ore magnate Andrew Forrest and New Zealand businessman Graeme Hart,In Zurich, a new strategy was being laid out.
“Asia has its own balance sheet and risk book. Suddenly, Australia is this outpost of Asia. It felt like you did not have control of your own destiny,” Tierney says. “We were a bank within a bank.”