And when we think about UBS as a non-US institution trying to grow its footprint in the US, always been difficult for the Europeans. How do you reflect on that now?

Well, I think first of all, we are a US institution as well. So, we uniquely own a major, are a European bank, but own a major wire house. I mean, Paine Webber is part of UBS. So, I think we have our foot in the States and we're not trying to build up through retail banking like others. We have 1.8 trillion assets. We have the Paine Webber network. We've never done a particularly good job of integrating that. By the way, this is history repeating itself. This is Dean Witter and Morgan Stanley. It's the same issue. First of all, what we have to do, we've changed leadership now, and I'm very positive about the leadership changes we made. We need to integrate Pane Webber properly into UBS. We need to get our national bank charter. We need to have the full range of banking products for our clients, which you know very well. So you own the client from both the asset and the liability side. Then you can start giving the tax advice and estate planning and everything else that makes that book of business sticky and makes the PBT margin more predictable. I think we will do that. Of course, what you will then say to me is, but can UBS in the long run really compete with Morgan Stanley or Bank of America because they're such big scale players? We have 6,000 FAs in the States and as I said, 1.8 trillion of assets. Clearly, we have critical mass, but at some point in the future, not the short-term future, we have to look at that scale issue. But first of all, let's deal with making sure that the PBT margin itself is much more predictable. And

we have a habit in the West of Peter Frankleman's expression. He's been on the show, is we have our eyes stitched closed when we think about the rest of the world. You've got a huge business in Asia with all of the attendant opportunities. Just give us a sense of how big, exciting, and what the potential is there. UBS,

it used to annoy me at Morgan Stanley, how big UBS were in investment banking in Asia, where they are number one. And clearly, in wealth management, we're the biggest by far. We are very well positioned. UBS is very well respected. It was very early into China. China is a fact of life, right? Very big in South Asia, PAC and so on, and big in Australia. So we have a very big practice. We're also very well liked. We are the only bank represented on the Hong Kong CEO's advisory council, the only Western bank. So we're very well positioned within China, greater China, so on. I think we're very well respected in that part of the world and we made significant strategic choices there. So for us, the whole Asia Pacific area is a big growth area for us. We're already big and we will continue to grow. In the meantime though, you can't ignore the US because the US is the single largest capital market in the world. It's where evolution is happening more quickly than anywhere else. As I said, we're lucky enough to have a property in the US anyway.

Back to culture, because that ultimately is so often the driver of the difference between the great and the not so great businesses. How do you go about reinforcing good values and building good culture? It's a very

interesting issue. Governor Torello, after the GFC in 2008, decided that what distinguished good banks from bad banks, those who had somehow got through, was culture. So he looked at, how do you regulate for culture? And of course, he found out it's impossible to regulate for culture. Culture is what it is. I mean, the Germans have that great expression, the fish stinks from the head, right? So I think a lot of it is about leadership. But a lot of it is also about making sure that you have people who believe they're part of the firm, they're there a long time. You applaud and lord people who have lengthy service, You have the ability to move people around. But what we do is we have a CCRC, a culture committee at board level which is chaired by me that regularly reports the board. We do all sorts of mini-surveys, employee feedback. We do all the measurements of whistleblowing everything else to make sure that we're aware of where we are. But at the end of the day, I do believe culture comes down to management and the respect for that management. So if you start compromising on who your leadership is for short term gains and so on, you get exactly what happens at Credit Suisse. the only thing that

might worry some about the size of all such institutions as UBS is, is that the entrepreneurialism that was really important at the beginning is, if not extinguished, it's curtailed. Well,

there are different types of entrepreneurship, but I think the role of a bank is to service entrepreneurs rather than be an entrepreneur itself, personally. If you want to be an entrepreneur, set up your own fund, have a private equity fund, have a venture capital fund. One of the things I heard at Credit Suisse when I was doing my diagnostics there is that people took great pride in how entrepreneurial Credit Suisse was. I'm thinking that's not really our job. Our job is to make sure that we service entrepreneurs. Yes, do we have an entrepreneurial spirit to make sure that we develop new products to satisfy clients? Yes, but I think the role of a bank is primarily to service its clients.

That's very clearly expressed. Let's talk about the leadership. You've referred to Sergio Montes, is it important? You're the chair, he's the CEO. There are lots of different models of relationships in CEO and chairs. How have you figured out how to make that work, given that you've had very clear views about how businesses should be run? Well,

first of all, we tend to agree. Secondly, the role of the chairman in Swiss banking is very clear. It's not the same as the role of a chairman in a UK bank. Chairman of Swiss bank has responsibility for strategy with the board. That makes life easy when you have that delineation. I got to know Sergio well before the acquisition. He's a very similar background to me. He came up through the equity side. I came up through the fixed income side, so I can probably add better than him. But we both came up through markets understand that and we both like clients. But Sergio, like me, is an individual who suits the moment and we're probably right for now. What you need to make sure is that you have a bench of the right people so that they continue to serve as the institution and the execution of the strategy itself. But Sergio and I get on, you know, we understand each other. We do have disagreements. It would be odd if we didn't. But they're the sort of disagreements that you and I would have had when we were working together. We resolve them and so on. So the main thing is when we brought Sergio back, we gave him three conditions, which were very important for us, for him to resume the role. One is that he would give us five years. Two is that he would deliver a bench of potential successes before he left. So it was credible. And three is that we'd fix the US. And those three things, we still fundamentally agree on those three things. So

I'm going to move to some general questions. You've had 40 years of deal making. What would you say is the mistake that stays with you and what do you take from it?

When people ask you, everybody makes mistakes. Right. There's a great line in the Charterhouse apartment by Staun Dal where the general has asked, if you knew today what you did yesterday when you made that mistake, would you have done it? He said, what an insult to my intelligence to think that I would have known any better when I made the mistake. So that's kind of where I am. I have made mistakes, but you learn from them and move on. I don't think I made any mistakes that sort of keep me awake at night. I think it comes back to my general belief that you can only worry about what you can control. And if that's the case, you get on with it. So you look, investment banking, it's a capricious world. Many intelligent people joining, much smarter than me, join investment banking and don't quite get to the levels they want to get to. And somehow, you get to those levels. Sometimes it's because you avoided mistakes. Sometimes it's because people adopted you. Sometimes you were just lucky in getting the right call at the right time. And that's the way I'd look at it. At the end of the day, you've got to have a fundamental belief of what is your job. And my fundamental belief is that I don't think I was ever cut out to be a sole practitioner, an entrepreneur. I always felt that I was better off working in an institution with an institutional framework and an institutional hierarchy that I could understand and navigate. I

for one would attest to the luck being so vital in my own journey. Stress comes in many different forms. You've commented on, you know, how you how stressful it was during that period. What advice would you offer to anybody in terms of how you deal with stress?

I think I said it before, it's knocking out the background stuff that's irrelevant. It's focusing on what you can control. It's having a great partner. In my case, I had a fantastic, I still have a fantastic wife who stood by me and was there for me. Do

you think that CEOs of businesses, not just banking business, but generally share notes and compare notes enough?

Probably not. I think Gorman was very good at doing that. But generally no. I think there's that famous Harvard Business School paper on the CEO is narcissist. And I think most CEOs probably fall into that category. I found some CEOs have been incredibly helpful. Jamie Dimon has been incredibly helpful as an example. There are others as well. So there are exceptions and over the years I've known clients, CEOs who've been very helpful and so on. There's a general point, I think CEOs are a special breed.

So I'm going to ask you two closing questions. I know you're not just a history lover, but I actually read it at some point in time. You might have wanted to become a specialist in Byzantine history. And back to Peter Frankopan, who is now occupying that chair at Oxford. If you could meet one figure from history, who would it be and why? It probably would be

Justinian, because he ruled for so long. And if you look at the span of his empire, he rebuilt a lot of the Western Roman Empire. He also, and a lot of people don't know this, probably had the worst plague in the history of the world, which killed 40% of the population and survived that. And he had an amazing wife and this, by the way, a new book out, a new biography of Justinian, which completely revisits the idea of Theodora's empress and what value she brought. And she clearly was an extraordinary lady. So I think Justinian would be a cool guy to meet.

And of course, it couldn't be a complete interview if we didn't talk about golf. You are a very keen golfer. If you could choose any course in the world, it's a four ball. Where are you going to play? And who are the three who're going to join you? Well,

obviously you would be one. Right. Let's just say I'm injured. Right. Maybe it would be old head in Kinsale. It's where I lived as a child. It's a magnificent area. It's Irish. Of course, I'd pick it. And who would I... You want me to play with famous people? Just the three people that you would like to play. Frankly, this sounds cool now. I'd like to play with my wife and two sons. Colin, we're going to stop there. I've been

really looking forward to seeing you again, to having this conversation. I do think that people who are outsiders won't have understood quite the significance as you looked over the chasm in 08 and Morgenstern he was teetering. I mean, it was extraordinary. It did remind me when the father's advice to his son from Kipling, which is if you could keep your head when all about are losing theirs and blaming it

on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, you definitely survive that test. One last comment on that. And you know these people. I had an incredible team in 08 around me. I had Ted Pick. I had Mo Assamul, Serkin Savasoglu, you know, Rob Kinler. I'm not, Paul Wirth, I'm not doing justice to all the people who were there. That team worked day and night to keep things afloat. And I am absolutely delighted that Ted is now the CEO of Morgan Stanley. I think Morgan Stanley will do very well on the pick.

Well, you've shared lots of great thoughts about leadership and culture, about the journey that UBS is on. And I just like to wish you good luck and thank you again very much. Thanks a lot for

this. Thank you.