The Man With No Borders

by Richard C. Morais

  Señor Martin looked around the café like he was mildly interested in ordering a coffee cake. “That is true. I’ll admit it. We do want the Álvarez branch franchise.”

  He then turned back to look at me, and now the kindly paternal look was nowhere to be seen. His voice was icy. “But you forget, young man, you aren’t in a position to dictate terms. You hold no cards.”

  When he said that, my heart skipped a beat, and my insecurity must have been apparent in my face, because Gorrindo opened his mouth, as if he were about to take over our talks. But I got ahold of myself and touched the lawyer’s arm, signaling I was still doing the talking.

  I shrugged. “That is a matter of perspective, Señor Martin. Every year, for decades, my father quietly parked a sliver of the family’s banking profits in Switzerland, just for this sort of rainy-day occasion. So I am just thirty and already have more than enough capital in Zürich to start again. My life is ahead of me—as are life’s opportunities. I have built many bridges in New York and Zürich. If Banco Álvarez collapses, so be it. My family and me, we will be fine.”

  “I don’t believe you would let your distinguished family bank collapse,” he scoffed. “There is only dishonor in that. Your father would be rolling over in his grave, if he heard the cavalier way you are talking now.”

  Now it was my turn to look careless and unruffled. “With all due respect, Señor Martin, I know what my father would be thinking better than you do, and he would urge me, in these circumstances, not to be overly sentimental. And so I am not. Our bank is about to be taken over. It will either be the state or Grupo Central de Bilbao that grabs Banco Álvarez. Make no mistake—to me, it is all the same. It is over for us. The Álvarez family is out of commercial and retail banking in Spain. So it’s really you who has to decide whether you will accept my terms. My demands are reasonable. The question is, Will you, as my father suggested you might, lose a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by trying too hard to get the lowest possible price?”

  Señor Martin turned an alarming scarlet color as I was talking, and it was clear he was just about to storm from the table. No one talked to him in this manner, and certainly not an impertinent young man. But Martin Junior put a hand on the old man’s wrist, calming him down. “So, what is it you want from us?” he asked.

  “The basic financial terms for Banco Álvarez you outlined are acceptable to me, but for one modification. At closing, I get a nonrefundable advance of seven hundred fifty million pesetas on the fifteen percent of profits earned from when the bank has been stabilized. I keep this minimum payment whether it turns a profit or not in three years.”

  The two Martins exchanged glances and I could tell that the demand was not a deal breaker.

  “Anything else?” said the younger.

  “I also want the private-banking license, now sitting dormant inside Banco Álvarez. It is my birthright, what I have painfully earned by going abroad. Franco granted the license to Papá specifically for me, and it is valuable in its own right.”

  “We’ll have to think about that.”

  “I haven’t finished. The Spanish private-banking license will be spun out into a separate holding company called Privatbank Álvarez GmbH, headquartered in Zürich. Grupo Central de Bilbao will finance this private-bank holding company with an additional two hundred fifty million pesetas in paid-in capital, in exchange for ten percent of the shares. The remaining ninety percent of the shares will be owned by my family and me. The private bank will have branches and representative offices in Spain, but I will personally run it from Zürich, with the care with which my father once ran the retail and commercial bank in Spain. It will be a wise investment on your part. I will make you money. But you will also have to sign a contract stating you agree to steer all potential private-banking customers at Grupo Central de Bilbao and Banco Álvarez exclusively to our jointly owned private bank in Zürich.”

  “That’s impossible,” scoffed Señor Martin Senior. “You are too young and inexperienced. We work with Zürich Union Bank on our clients’ private-banking matters. We have an agreement with them.”

  “Undo it. If you want Banco Álvarez—that’s my price.”

  “And if we refuse?” asked Martin the younger.

  “Very simple. The state gets our bank, you lose the valuable franchise you have wanted for so long, and . . .”

  “And what?”

  “And I inform the authorities that you have secretly been obtaining confidential information about Banco Álvarez from Señor Gorrindo. Franco’s new minister of the economy has declared war on corporate espionage, as you know, and he will be very interested in what I have to say about how Banco Álvarez was systematically plundered and undermined—from within and without.”

  All three men visibly stiffened, but they were pros, and their expressions fairly quickly returned to a neutral stance.

  “Preposterous. But, even hypothetically, if you were to make such allegations, you’ll need to produce evidence,” said my father’s old lawyer. His voice was dry and matter-of-fact. “Madrid will not go against one of the nation’s great banking families on the basis of some outlandish accusations by a thirty-year-old, who really is, let’s face it, no longer a true Spaniard.”

  I turned my head and for a few moments just stared at Gorrindo.

  “People loved doing business with Papá, Gorrindo, partly because he had great gifts as a communicator. He was warm, made people feel good. I am shy and not so charming as he was. But I am a far better judge of character than Papá ever was. He believed in the people he loved. He could never imagine, for example, that his own brother or best friend would betray him—and yet they both did. I am a much better businessman than my father ever was. I will never make those mistakes.”

  “I repeat. You need evidence of wrongdoing to make such ridiculous allegations in public.”

  I opened my briefcase and took out a telex. “A new US Treasury regulation requires that all banks incorporated in the US disclose fees paid to third-party service providers. This telex is from a senior partner of the accounting firm Arthur Anderson. He states here that Grupo Central de Bilbao’s US unit, located on Park Avenue, has, as required, filed the new 16-F disclosures in New York State.”

  “Yes?”

  “Alfonso Gorrindo Campo appears on the 16-F disclosure as having received two point two million dollars in fees for ‘advisory services.’”

  My family’s US accountants had uncovered for me this 16-F with Gorrindo’s name, just before I flew down to Spain to salvage my inheritance. It was clear, by the look on his face, that Papá’s aging provincial lawyer in San Sebastián was unaware of the change in banking regulations across the Atlantic Ocean.

  “You are a paid employee of Banco Álvarez and on its board, Gorrindo. Even in Spain, receiving such a rich payment from Banco Álvarez’s competitor—cash payments funneled through its foreign branch—will be seen as highly irregular and suspect, shortly before its takeover. Domingo, it turns out, was not the only one engaged in fraudulent misrepresentations at Banco Álvarez.”

  Gorrindo was a tough Basque, had nerves of steel, and he kept his gaze calm and steady. The only sign of agitation was the way he absentmindedly twirled his handlebar mustache as he pondered my telex.

  He finally looked over at Martin Senior. “His cards are stronger than we thought, and, coño, they have been well played.”

  “This I did not expect,” the old man said, sitting back hard in the booth. “But he’s bluffing.”

  “I have seen this young man fish, Señor Martin. Cuidado. He has the stomach for the kill. It’s not a problem for him. I advise you not to take that position.”

  “Tell me,” said Martin the younger. “Is it true that Franco, after seeing your catch of salmon, said, ‘All quiet in the Alcázar, my General’?”

  “Yes, it is. And then he stole my fish. He claimed them as his own.”

  The Martins looked startled for a moment and then both roared with laughter, while Gorri
ndo and I sat tensely opposite, both of us awaiting our fates.

  Martin Senior finally pulled a white handkerchief from his breast pocket, wiped his eyes and sweaty face, and then leisurely pushed it back into place. “El Caudillo certainly has his own ways,” he said.

  Martin thought for a few moments more, then leaned forward and held out his hand, grimacing with his white dentures. “Bueno. You have a deal, young man. You did your father proud today. He could not have done better.”

  His son held out his hand, too. “José María, hombre, if things don’t work out with the private bank in Zürich, come talk to us. I am sure we can find an interesting job for you. But I have a feeling you will do just fine.”

  When Gorrindo offered his hand, I turned my back on my father’s old lawyer and slid from the booth. “Gentlemen,” I said to the Martins. “Please come with me now to the bank, so we can call my lawyer in Zürich and get this agreement legally drawn up and signed. It is, as you say, important we get the press release out this evening, before the article appears in tomorrow’s newspaper.”

  I turned to Papá’s old lawyer. I was elated, for having pulled off the deal with the Martins, but also murderous that my old tío had betrayed our family in this way. I could no longer hold in what I was feeling.

  “Your services are no longer required, Gorrindo. You are dirt to the family who loyally paid your bills and helped you raise a family in comfort. If you ever see me again—cross to the other side of the street.”

  ELEVEN

  I returned to Zürich, collapsed in my bed, and dreamt my father and I were fishing the Bridge Pool on the Ribadesella. It was like we were one. We raised our rods at the exact same moment, our forward casts sending the flies perfectly in unison to the pool’s far wall. The green shrubs and the blue-green river were electric with life as we hooked fish after fish.

  I awoke. Lisa was lying reassuringly next to me in the bed of our Tiefenbrunen apartment, while Sam was asleep in the nursery next door. I gazed at them as they slept, then put on my shoes and went to work.

  My superior at the Swiss Federal Credit Bank had lunch with me on the terrace of Das Storchen, the hotel hanging over the Limmat in Zürich. Herr Albiez had been a great mentor, teaching me, among other things, that private banking wasn’t really about managing assets, but the art of keeping family secrets, and when I looked over at the silver-haired banker sitting opposite me, I was unexpectedly moved and full of loss.

  But the moment had arrived. “I cannot thank you enough, Herr Albiez. You have taught me so much, but it’s time, as was always the plan, for me to leave the Swiss Federal Credit Bank and run my family’s private bank.”

  Albiez returned his glass of dry white wine to the table. “I expected this after the Grupo Central de Bilbao announcement. Well played, Herr Álvarez. Every banking executive on the Bahnhofstrasse now knows of your existence. It’s not often a feeder bank gets peeled away from the Zürich Union Bank. People have taken notice.”

  “Could I convince you to join me at Privatbank Álvarez?”

  “Thank you for the compliment. But no. I’m afraid not. I am too old and prefer the security of the Swiss Federal Credit Bank.”

  We sat like that for a moment, both of us lost in thought and staring at the mallards bobbing along the river currents.

  “But your instincts are right,” he continued. “You will need an older Swiss banker to join you, to be the public face of Privatbank Álvarez. However gifted you are at seamlessly passing money back and forth across borders, without the authorities noticing, you are still far too young to be running a private bank in Switzerland. Private banking is all about projecting an aura of stability and security and timeless wisdom. Clients want to know that your institution can solidly provide them with the wealth preservation they need for generations into the future.”

  Albiez took another sip of wine, before continuing in his blunt Swiss way. “Let us be honest. A private-bank start-up run by a young Spaniard? No. No. That just won’t fly in Switzerland. This is not America. Wealthy European families won’t give you their money. To have credibility in Zürich, you must have a seasoned Swiss insider by your side, someone who can open up closed doors.”

  “Yes. I know. I was hoping that might be you.”

  “No. But I have someone in mind who might be suitable. Franz Deutwiller at Julius Montblanc Group. They just took Latin America away from him. He’s very unhappy.”

  “I know Deutwiller. That’s a great idea. I will contact him.”

  Albiez and I, later joined by Deutwiller, plotted Privatbank Álvarez’s strategy, a way my little family bank could survive among the Bahnhofstrasse titans of Swiss Federal Credit Bank, Zürich Union Bank, and the Schweizer-Deutsche Bank Gesellschaft. The plan was simple: Privatbank Álvarez would specialize in servicing Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American clients who wanted to get their money out of their politically dangerous home countries and brought safely to Switzerland. We would target individuals—as we put it to the big Swiss banks, hoping for the crumbs they might want to leave on the plate—whose sources of wealth “are not of clear provenance and might prove difficult to process. Keeping the secrets of such families will be our specialty.”

  The first client that Albiez ushered out of the Swiss Federal Credit Bank headquarters and sent two blocks down the Bahnhofstrasse, to the just-opened Privatbank Álvarez, was Señor Herman Strauss of Paraguay. I promptly called up my former boss, discreetly asking for some background information about the trembling old cattle farmer in my office.

  “One day,” Albiez said, “there will be an uproar about how much looted Jewish wealth came to Zürich during and after the war. It will all be about the Jews, about how we Swiss bankers ‘stole’ all this money from the Jews.”

  He paused and then dryly added, “What they will never know—we actually took far more from the Nazis.”

  “Not far now. Just over the mountaintop.”

  “Can’t wait,” Lisa said sarcastically.

  Lisa’s perm was tied up in a blue-and-yellow silk kerchief, her big sunglasses blotting out her face. Every now and then she would swivel around, to check on Sam and John in the back seat, before remembering they were back in town with the nanny.

  We drove up the pass in the Mercedes cabriolet, through the pine forest, and into the village of Unterägeri. Beyond the village’s backstreets, dotted with smoke-belching chimneys, we came upon a 240-year-old farmhouse with a flagstone courtyard surrounded by pear trees.

  The chalet’s wooden sides were blackened with age, the shutters, green. Pink and white carnations were cascading from the window boxes. We pulled into the farm’s courtyard. A gurgling stone trough stood at its center.

  An old Swiss woman in black and wearing thick glasses came out of the barn and squinted at us nearsightedly. A few stalks of hay stuck to the kerchief she had wrapped tightly around her head.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Lisa whispered. “I’ve got the creeps already.”

  The real estate agent from Zürich pulled into the court behind us and jumped cheerfully out of the car. She went to talk to the old woman, who, shortly thereafter, melted back into the barn and wasn’t seen again.

  Lisa was seven months pregnant with Rob. She was already huge and wearing a caftan dress favored by Elizabeth Taylor, a riot of concentric pink and orange circles that ballooned at the midriff. She pulled herself with difficulty out of the convertible’s front seat. I rushed to help her and was again struck—even behind the face-hiding sunglasses and Hermès scarf—how everything about her was glowing. It was a sign, as they said in Spain, another boy was on its way, for a girl would have robbed her of her beauty.

  “Please look beyond the décor,” I said. “We will spend money modernizing it. Just look at the layout and rooms and feel of the space.”

  We went through the chalet’s heavy main door, the small foyer with coat racks and shoe banks leading to the blackened-wood stairs heading steeply up to the first floor. Th
e house smelled of rotten apples, sawdust, and a stale fish fry. Lisa held on to the banister tight, hauling her swollen and panting self up the stairs.

  A speckled light poured in through the stained-glass window in the hallway, a scene of eleventh-century Swiss burghers fighting off the Austrians. Opposite this window stood a porcelain bank consisting of a stove and bench, for heating the house in winter and drying snowy outer clothes.

  The agent opened the first door off the landing, and we walked into a light-filled kitchen. It had a cheerful breakfast nook with bench, under a set of wide windows overlooking a pear and apple orchard, and an elegant parlor and formal dining room in the other direction. Lisa grew quiet as we walked from room to room, each with its own little architectural surprise—a doorway arch, a potbellied stove with cheerful porcelain tiles, bedrooms beautifully paneled with good hardwoods and carvings.

  “This is the only farm for fifty kilometers that foreigners are allowed to buy,” said the agent.

  We went downstairs again, to look at the stately barns and sheds and orchards out back, before saying our goodbyes to the estate agent. We got into the car and drove to the village of Ägeri. I held my breath, awaiting Lisa’s verdict, but she wasn’t giving anything away. I pulled in at Das Goldene Kreuz, the restaurant overlooking the village stream and canal.

  The chef-patron sat us on the terrace out back, overlooking the waterway, the ducks, the young mothers with strollers coming down the towpath. We ordered drinks, some air-cured beef, and pickled onions.

  “I still don’t understand why you want to move us to a cow pasture.”

  I explained, once again, how Canton Zug, this province in Central Switzerland, had recently rewritten its corporate bylaws and lowered its tax rates so that it was now one of the best places in the world, from a cost perspective, to headquarter a finance company—and live.

  I told her how Philips Brothers, Salomon Brothers, and Goldman Sachs were all relocating their global commodities-trading arms to the city of Zug, just fifteen minutes down the Gubel mountainside from Ägeri. That I had just met the local partner of oil traders Marc Rich and Pinky Green, and he had urged us to move here as well. He was fundraising for the American International School of Zürich, and the school’s campus was fairly easily reachable, just over the hill. In short, our children would have a decent American school to attend, even from this seemingly remote outpost.