“We’re closing down all of our American accounts down here. Don’t want to risk a dustup with Washington. We have an account here and want to know if we could transfer it to you.”
“How big’s the account, Paul?”
“Two hundred.”
“Two hundred thousand? We don’t take accounts that small.”
He laughed. “Not two hundred thousand, Bradley. Two hundred million.”
I sat up in my chair. “You’ve got a client with two hundred million and you’re kicking him out of the bank?”
“No more Americans. We’re done. No offense.”
“None taken! Send him my way.”
But it didn’t work. This fat-cat client, a real estate tycoon from California, wanted to move his money to Geneva, but he wouldn’t sign the Qualified Intermediary (QI) agreement. The QI is a contract between a foreign bank and the United States IRS, promising to provide information on revenues for the purpose of taxing the client, or not to hold US securities and still allow the client to remain anonymous. So, Barclays basically wanted this guy to fill out a W-9 and get creamed on his $200 million, which he wasn’t willing to do. I thought about it for a while, and since I was about to take off to Hawaii for a friend’s wedding, I figured I’d stop in California and have a chat with the guy. Maybe I could turn him around, or figure out some other creative way to get his money.
Before taking my vacation, I made another trip to London for the usual wining, dining, and lightening clients of their loads. While I was there, Harry Pilkington, a charming headhunter with Armstrong International, took me out to lunch and informed me that another Swiss bank, UBS, was very interested in hiring me away from Barclays Bank, with a substantial raise and benefits. UBS was huge, but I politely told Harry I wasn’t interested in working for a big firm again; a boutique bank would be more my style, without all the bureaucratic bullshit. He asked me to think it over. I didn’t.
It was April 2001 when I took off for Los Angeles. In the course of my wheelings and dealings, I’d made good friends with Martin Schuermann, the head of Bertelsmann CLT-UFA and financier of Don Johnson and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, including Terminator 3. Martin was marrying “Downtown” Julie Brown, a beautiful British actress and former MTV VJ. They were lovely, warm, generous people, and I was looking forward to their wedding in Hawaii.
Weddings aren’t much fun if you attend them solo, so I’d decided to take a companion along. Marketa was a bar hostess in Prague—tall, slim, pretty, and just turned twenty-two. She’d never been to the United States, so my invitation to fly business class, party in Hollywood, and then see some hot lava put a smile on her face. She was a sweet girl, innocent in many ways, and she gasped when I booked us into the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills. Did we have a good time? Let’s just say there’s nothing quite like gratitude sex. I called her my “Czech Mate,” which she didn’t get, but I amused myself.
Just before the prewedding bash, Marketa and I were lounging out by the pool. She was in her nothing bikini, reading USA Today, while I perused the Financial Times.
“Bradley, who iss ziss fellow, Kato Kaelin?”
“He’s a nobody, darling.” I flicked my fingers. “Just some dude who was O. J. Simpson’s houseguest who declined to give him an alibi for when he was out murdering his wife and a very nice waiter.”
“Oh, I see.”
Well, that night at the private party, which was held in a gorgeous mansion in Beverly Hills, who sits down next to us at our table? That’s right, Kato, and the place was crawling with movie stars and famous athletes and I thought Marketa was going to faint from all the glitz. At one point she got up and went to the ladies’ room, and I started to get concerned when it took her forever. Then she came back.
“Bradley, that was the strangest thing! I waited outside the bathroom for sooo long. And then, these two blonde ladies came out together, but they did not flush the toilet!”
I kissed her cheek and patted her hand. “You don’t need to flush it,” I said, “if you’re only using the porcelain top.” Her brows furrowed. Alice in Wonderland.
The next morning I rented a Porsche 911 convertible and we drove down the coast to Newport Beach, where I dropped Marketa off to do some shopping while I headed over to a modest bistro to meet Paul Major’s now-stranded client, Igor Olenicoff (Exhibit 13). I was sitting there drinking coffee when Olenicoff walked in, and I knew right away this wasn’t a guy who threw his money around. The first thing that came to my mind was “Goldfinger.” He had silky white hair, cold blue eyes, thin lips, and one eyebrow permanently cocked. With him was a young man who turned out to be his beloved son and heir apparent, Andrei, who looked like a young Brad Pitt.
“So pleased to meet you, Bradley,” Olenicoff said as he and Andrei faced me across a corner table. He’d immigrated to the States in the late 1950s, but he still had a hint of a Boris Yeltsin accent.
“The pleasure’s all mine, Mr. Olenicoff. My apologizes about all this foolishness with Barclays.”
“You may call me Igor, and no need to apologize.” A waiter suddenly showed up with juice, waffles, strawberries, and a pot of coffee. Apparently the Olenicoffs were regulars. “I am sure that a more flexible institution will want to host my offspring.” He meant his money, and his eyes crinkled. “I do not mind paying my fair share to the government. However, fair is a relative term. Perhaps you can think of a solution?”
“I believe I can indeed,” I said.
After a few subtle inquiries about his financial status, I realized this guy was a multibillionaire, with scores of real estate properties and a healthy taste for fine motorcars and yachts.
“What I would propose,” I said, “is a two-tiered strategy. First, I’ll find you a bank in Geneva that’s amenable to your preferred status.” We all knew I meant somebody who’ll hide your money and doesn’t give a shit if you pay taxes or not. “Then, I’m going to refer you to a close friend of mine, a savvy CPA and trustee in Liechtenstein. That gentleman will set up company structures, trusts, foundations, and so forth. Your name won’t appear on any of their records, but you’ll be the ultimate beneficiary.”
Olenicoff smiled and wagged a thick finger at me. “I had a good feeling about you, Bradley.” He looked at his Rolex. “However, I’m afraid I have another appointment. We’ll continue this discussion by phone?”
“Not by phone.” I stood up to shake his hand and smiled as I held his grasp for a moment. “But we’ll manage.”
I picked up Marketa at the row of high-end shops in Newport Beach center. I’d given her five hundred bucks to spend, and she came out carrying just one small shopping bag with a sundress and a pair of sandals inside. I should have married her on the spot. We were already heading back up to LA when my cell phone buzzed. It was Andrei (Exhibit 14).
“My father liked you very much, Brad. Do you have time to meet me for lunch?”
Well, of course I did, and we turned the Porsche around again and Marketa and I had a fine lunch with Andrei at Las Brisas, a swanky Mexican place on the Newport coast. He was such a nice charming kid, and he said, “We’re really happy to deal with you, Brad. My dad’s ecstatic! He’s really pleased you’re going to help him find a new home to hide his money.”
“That’s my job,” I said. “That’s what I do.” We all raised our margarita glasses and toasted. “Andrei, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” He didn’t get the Casablanca reference. The kid was too young.
On the way back up to LA, my phone buzzed again. It was Harry Pilkington calling from London, trying to pitch me again on the UBS job. Suddenly, a lightbulb went off in my head. Maybe, just maybe … “Harry,” I said, “let’s meet next week.”
Martin and Julie’s wedding in Hawaii was spectacular. It was held at the Paul Mitchell estate, there were more staff than wedding guests, and I hung out a lot with Don Johnson and his wife, Kelley Phleger, which was cool because I loved the television show Miami Vice. When we got back to Genev
a, Marketa flew home to Prague and I went off to meet Harry.
“I might consider the UBS offer,” I said over lunch. “But on one condition.”
“What would that be, Bradley?” Pilkington looked like the actor Ralph Fiennes, but without the crazy eyes.
“A performance-based bonus is mandatory.” What I meant was that any return on assets I produced from Net New Money I’d bring in would earn me a percentage, right off the top.
“That’s rather unprecedented,” Harry said. He was right. Most Swiss private bankers didn’t have college degrees, and MBAs were extremely rare. They usually started off as tellers or clerks, worked their way up as interns, and even as managers made modest salaries rarely exceeding $100,000. Bonuses were modest; tips at Christmas of a few thousand Swiss francs. “How much do you have in mind?”
“Twenty percent.”
“Good lord, Bradley!”
“Oh, and one more thing. My assistant, Valerie, comes with me.”
“They’ll never go for that!”
“Well, Harry, give it the old English try, or find someone else.”
He did try, and UBS balked, but they kept nagging Harry to snag me on the cheap. In the meantime, I did my research, calling around and discreetly asking my contacts why UBS wanted me so badly. Harry met me again for lunch.
“Listen, Brad, they’ll give you $250,000, a car lease, and a generous bonus. But this twenty percent? It’s not on.”
“Really?” I said. “That’s interesting, because the reason they need me is that the guy who was doing my job got caught watching porn at his desk, so they had to can his ass. I happen to know that you also approached Fred Ruiz over at Credit Suisse, and he declined, so UBS is fresh out of options. Plus, they know I’ve got an MBA, hundreds of clients, and I’ve made money hand over fist for Barclays. Plus, I have a ‘C’ work permit. So it’s twenty percent off the top, or nothing.”
Next thing you know, I was walking into UBS headquarters for a meeting with Christian Bovay, head of all Anglo banking for the firm based in Geneva. Right off the bat I pegged him as a devious bastard, but I was no Boy Scout myself. Bovay was thin, fidgety, with thinning hair and a case of dandruff like snow in the Swiss Alps. He also had the weirdest set of crooked teeth. They reminded me of burglar tools. We jousted in his office for half an hour.
“Have no fear, Mr. Bovay,” I said. “My bonus isn’t going to break the bank. I just feel it’s my due, given my past performance. And, should you have to pay it to me, it’ll merely mean that I’ve been very successful for you. Isn’t that about it?”
A week later, Harry called me, practically peeing his pants. “Come on in and sign the contract! They’ll go for eighteen percent. They’ve caved!”
Well, that was good enough. But before I did that, I called Andrei in California.
“Hello, Andrei. It looks like I’ve found a chain store that likes your product. Are we still on board?”
“That’s fabulous! You bet we are, Brad!”
On July 4, 2001, I walked into UBS, and as Christian Bovay and the head of Human Resources added their John Hancocks, I signed my new contract with UBS, including my eighteen percent performance-based bonus (Exhibit 6). Before the ink was dry, I mentioned to Bovay that I’d shortly be bringing him my first UBS client, along with $200 million in assets. Bovay’s burglar-tool teeth gaped wide open.
Checkmate.
I was instantly the highest-paid UBS private banker in all of Switzerland.
1As of July 2016, one Swiss franc (CHF 1) is worth approximately one US dollar (US $1).
CHAPTER 4
SPORTS CARS
AND MODELS AND
YACHTS, OH MY!
“Banking establishments are more dangerous to our
liberties than standing armies.”
—THOMAS JEFFERSON,
AMERICAN PRESIDENT
AUTUMN 2001
There’s nothing quite like a 2000 Ferrari 360 Modena spider convertible, especially one in candy-apple red (Exhibit 8). With the top down, the sun on your face, and your eyes behind a pair of Vuarnet sunglasses, you pop that six-speed manual transmission and the V-8 Dino engine growls like a crouching leopard, making you feel like a threat at Le Mans. From the outside, that car says money, power, sex.
But a Ferrari’s even better when you haven’t paid a dime for it. This one was the second I’d bought with my favorite kind of cash, “OPM,” Other People’s Money. I had overseas clients who just wanted a toy to play with in Europe; no need to ship one home and pay crazy taxes on the $250,000 price tag. So they’d tell me what model they craved and I’d buy the car, put Finnish tax-free plates on, and stow it in a luxury garage in Geneva. Whenever they showed up, I’d hand them the keys, and the rest of the time I tooled around whenever I felt like it. That was the deal. You can’t leave a car like that sitting around getting rusty. Enzo Ferrari would turn in his grave.
It was early September, a beautiful time of year in Geneva, and I was cruising around the city in the early afternoon, looking for a nice outdoor lunch spot where I could park the car and keep my eye on it. I’d already resigned from Barclays and bid Olivier farewell, which was tough because he’d been such a classy boss and I knew I’d miss him. My new job at UBS was set to begin on October 2, so I’d already been on two months of “gardening leave.” That’s another weird European phenomenon; you resign from one gig and they pay you full salary for six months until the next one starts, maybe so you won’t say anything bad about the one you just quit. I didn’t have a garden, but I was happy enough to stay home; nurture my window boxes, liquor cabinet, and cigar humidor; and party with my friends. Marketa was back in Prague and our encounters had waned. She was looking for a husband. I was looking for fun.
The cell buzzed on the seat beside me and I picked it up. It was John Ross, a Canadian buddy I’d met at the Neuchâtel wine festival, Fête des Vendanges. He sounded breathless.
“Brad, have you heard?”
“Heard what, John?”
“A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center.”
“Fucking impossible,” I scoffed. “That’s not even a flight pattern.”
“I’m telling you, dude. A big plane.”
“John, you’re fucking dreaming. That can’t happen.”
But he insisted, and I just blew him off and said, “Okay, whatever. I’m driving right now. Give you a call a little later.”
I hung up, annoyed, thinking people really should check their facts before doing this Chicken Little routine. The only such incident I could remember was back in the previous century, when something like an old Lockheed Electra had slammed into the Empire State Building. So maybe some dumbass flying a Cessna had hit the World Trade Center; no big deal. I was driving now on a cobblestone street and making sure not to scrape the undercarriage. The phone buzzed again.
“What is it now, John?”
“Another plane just hit the other tower.”
“Oh … fuck!”
I pulled the car over. My heart was pounding.
Most everyone on the planet who watched that terrible event unfold that morning had the same reaction. One plane, it’s an accident. Two planes, it’s fucking terrorists. And certainly every American like me, wherever they were, felt the fury well up from their guts like poisonous bile. I drove the Ferrari right back to the garage and threw the keys to the valet. I didn’t trust myself to drive anymore, and I wandered around, suddenly feeling very alone. Switzerland wasn’t like the States, where you could storm into any sports bar and find three big TVs covering the news and scream at the screens while you drank and cursed with perfect strangers. I felt like I was on another planet, and home was burning.
Walking back to my flat, I picked up every paper I could find, but they were all yesterday’s news. Then I sat up half the night in front of my big TV, drinking scotch and watching the towers fall—over and over—and the Pentagon burning, and that smoking smudge in a field in Pennsylvania. I knew lots of folks in Ma
nhattan, many of them friends working in finance, and I called them all as I held my breath, and then my mom and dad and brothers Doug and Dave. Rick James was all right, though his voice sounded hollow and weary. No one I knew or loved had gone down in flames, but thousands of other innocents had.
The next morning was brutal. I bought all the papers again. The International Tribune headline screamed “Hijacked Jets Hit Trade Towers In N.Y. and Plow Into Pentagon.” The European papers weren’t censoring the images from New York and the TV reports were the same; people crushed to death on the sidewalks, body parts and smoking airplane wheels, long shots of screaming jumpers in flames taking that endless leap until they burst apart on the street. I felt infuriated and helpless, thinking about how if I’d stayed in the military, I’d probably be packing for Afghanistan to go kick some ass. But here I was, a thirty-five-year-old ex-pat banker in Switzerland, with not a damn thing to contribute. Then I watched the next colossus tumble—the stock market. Well, I thought, at least maybe I can help some of those Americans secure their futures against the coming global financial hit. It was small comfort, but all I could really do.
Every year at this time, I’d been taking three weeks off for a party tour with my friends. First we’d hit Saint-Tropez in the south of France, then drive up to Munich for Oktoberfest, and wrap it all up at the wine festival in Neuchâtel, an hour north of Geneva. I thought about canceling, but I knew Sevrine would be terribly disappointed. She was Swiss, gorgeous, and we’d only just started seeing each other. Selfishly, I thought she might provide the perfect distraction. Sitting around Geneva in mourning wouldn’t help a soul, and dousing our Western freedoms and fun was exactly what those motherfuckers wanted.
Sevrine and I had a few forced laughs, and we sat on the Pampelonne beach talking about how screwed up the world was and drinking Laurent-Perrier rose champagne. She was topless of course, and magnificent, but my mind was preoccupied. In Munich, the Germans carried on as if nothing had happened, downing liters of beer, singing Bavarian dance songs, and staggering to the nearest train station. Maybe they figured New York was finally payback for Dresden. We stayed half in the bag for most of the trip, and the final leg at the wine festival was the sour icing on a melting cake. None of my American or Canadian buddies showed up, nor the Brits. I drove the Ferrari back to Geneva, put it away, and got ready to go back to work.
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