The Pirates of Scandinavia the S.S. Saxo Bank and Sabet interview
The Pirates of Scandinavia
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Last month the S.S. Saxo Bank forced hundreds of employees to walk the plank in a furious effort to keep their Danish Longship from taking on any more water amidst the financial tsunami that has engulfed CFD brokers around the world. But it is another former shipmate of Saxo that has now taken to his Somalia-like pirate ship to fire pot shots at this listing to port Viking Broker. Ahoy it’s Ch.H. Sabet! With parrot perched on shoulder and a black eye patch in place Sabet has Saxo in his sights…
According to Euromoney Magazine in an article titled “Sabet Bites Back in Saxo Saga” Sabet says that he was exiled to Davey Jones locker because of a shareholder dispute, not because of an SFBC investigation of alleged insider trading.
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“This is really about an argument between shareholders,” says Sabet. “I still own around 5% of Saxo and I was not happy with what I saw as the bank’s domestic focus. I offered to leave, but I wanted Saxo to buy my shares as was agreed when it took over Synthesis,” he adds. Sabet says that Saxo is now focused on becoming a well-known name in Denmark, including giving backing to the small, centrist Liberal Alliance political party.
So how did this investigation come about? Euromoney states:
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Saxo has declined to comment on whether or not the investigation came about because it informed the regulator of an irregularity, rather than the SFBC acting because it suspected suspicious activity. But a letter from the commission makes it clear it was informed by Saxo of the issue.
So instead of paying Sabet his share of Saxo’s booty the scallywags in Denmark simply ratted him out to regulators? Shiver me timbers that’s a low thing to do to a mate. But Sabet wasn’t the only one sent to the brig.
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Sabet says he is also particularly upset that his dismissal was followed by a purge of his former employees, including his chauffeur. He believes that he will be fully exonerated when the SFBC reports its findings. In the meantime he is preparing to take legal action to clear his name and to complete the deal that was agreed when he sold Synthesis Bank to Saxo in September 2007; this included the verbal agreement to purchase his remaining shares in the bank.
Yarrrgh matey, Saxo ain’t likely to depart from its treasure anytime soon. This Sabet fellow could be waiting a long time before he sees one gold doubloon from the cash strapped folks in Denmark. I reckon Sabet would have a better chance demanding ransoms from oil tanker owning Saudi princes than from a forex and cfd broker that had been spending money like a drunken sailor on shore leave prior to the financial panic.
Arrgh, Sabet best crack open a bottle of Rum and batten down the hatches cause Saxo will fight him to the last cannon ball over that 5% share. To be continued I’m sure.
Berlingske Tidende Business Nov. 29
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Massive claim against Saxo Bank in dismissal case
By Peter Suppli Benson
Saxo Bank is facing several million-kroner suits in the wake of its dismissal of C.H. Sabet of Switzerland who was head of Global Trading at the bank, and who is also a major shareholder in the bank. He was dismissed in August on allegations of irregularities. He has now retorted with several suits against his own bank and is to try to have the Saxo purchase of his old bank rescinded.
Several suits are now following in the wake of Saxo Bank’s dramatic dismissal of Sabet on August 29 this year.
Sabet, who is one of the major shareholders in Saxo Bank, was dismissed from his post as Chairman of Saxo Bank in Switzerland and head of Global Trading at the bank.
Sabet has started the first suit in Switzerland – a suit containing several employment law demands. But to Berlingske Business, the dismissed Swiss bank director now says that within a few weeks he will be ready with a further two suits against Saxo Bank.
“We are close to being ready with a major suit on ‘damages of interests’ and at the same time we will open a suit to attempt to rescind Saxo Bank’s purchase of my old bank Synthesis,” says C.H. Sabet, who has declined to put a sum on his demands.
Saxo Bank has only a few comments on the upcoming suit.
“This autumn we reduced our staff with 267 employees including several senior employees. This case has nothing to do with not being able to handle firing managers, but I cannot get further into the core issue here as we do not make statements about personnel issues,” says Kim Fournais, one of the two founders of Saxo Bank adding:
“Both parties are under a duty of confidentiality and we will be keeping to that. But we calmly await the suit. The truth will come out then,” says Kim Fournais.
The basis for the dismissal is very complex. According to Saxo Bank, Sabet had committed ‘irregularities’, but the bank has not waited to explain what those irregularities were. In connection with the dismissal, several media said that the issue was one of large-scale insider trading. It has not been possible, however, to verify the suggestions.
Sabet has, however, decisively refuted any claims that he has infringed on the Swiss banking rules and on Sunday in a major interview with Berlingske Tidende, he repudiates the allegations.
In connection with the interview in Geneva, Berlingske Business has been able to read the correspondence between Sabet and the Swiss financial authority since his dismissal on August 29, 2008.
The letters show that the Swiss financial authorities have apparently never opened a case against Sabet. That is rather dramatic as Saxo Bank has precisely based its dismissal on the fact that an investigation was under way against the bank director.
“I have no idea what I am supposed to have done to justify dismissal. The allegations that I am supposed to have contravened Swiss stock exchange rules are pulled out of thin air. I was previously part of a technical investigation in which I had personally carried out some trades. That is something that I should not have done – but it should not result in dismissal. I can only see this as the result of a sort of power struggle. Perhaps Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen were angry because I spoke my mind about Ryllberg. Perhaps they wanted to get rid of me – and tried to do so without paying compensation. I don’t know,” says Sabet.
“We are in contact with Saxo Bank and we are aware that there is a conflict between Sabet and Saxo Bank. But apart from that e have no comment,” says Tobias Lux, Deputy Head of Communication at the Swiss Bank Authority.
Sabet’s dismissal caused quite some disbelief in baking circles in Denmark and Switzerland where he was known as the founder of Synthesis Bank which was taken over by Saxo Bank in 2007.
One of Saxo Bank’s problems is that Sabet is the third largest single shareholder in the company. Only the company’s two founders, Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen personally own more stock in the company. Sabet owns almost six percent of stock. According to Business’ information, Saxo stock is traded – although not publicly – at around DKK 160. This means that Sabet owns some DKK 500 million in Saxo Bank.
Berlingske Tidende has presented several further questions to Saxo Bank which management has not wanted to answer.
The day Saxo trembled
By Peter Suppli Benson
He was dismissed from Saxo Bank on the basis of harsh accusations of insider trade and “serious irregularities”. The dismissed Saxo executive, C.H. Sabet, has claimed innocence all the way.
GENEVA: He arrives at the interview with a roar. An entrance the size of the noise he made when he left Saxo Bank earlier this year.
Not that you can directly compare the firing of Saxo Bank executive and multi-millionaire Sabet with the roar of the black Porsche RS Turbo which he nonchalantly leaves with the engine howling at the entrance to the posh Hotel La Perle at Lake Geneva. But it is clear that Sabet is not just a person who slides in an out of a door without anybody noticing – or in or out of a company such as Saxo Bank, for that matter.
He has dark hair and is stocky. It is evident that the Egyptian forefathers shine through. It is also evident that he is a man who is extremely comfortable in the deep armchairs in the lounge of Hotel La Reserve. He nods to the uniformed employees, finds the best corner to speak in and then spends the time telling his story while he sometimes glances into the hotel lounge and sometimes checks his indispensable Blackberry that continually emits noises with calls and new emails. Perhaps we are just prejudiced, but it is presumably here – rather than in the fine offices in the countless banks in the city that the most important bank transactions take place in Geneva and surroundings.
It is the first time that Sabet steps forward to give a regular interview about his dismissal. About the insider accusations that apparently never gave rise to an official issue, about his relationship with the management of a bank in which he is still the third largest individual shareholder and about the court cases that are waiting.
At present, it is outside the bank offices that Sabet has to cultivate his business connections. A 23-year career as a banker and trader was put on standby when, on August 29, he was fired downright from his post at Saxo Bank.
The decisive letter
At that time Sabet was board chairman of Saxo Bank /Switzerland SA and Global Head of Trading at Saxo Bank A/S. Firings happen every day – but ever since the way that Sabet was dismissed from Saxo has made various internet forums specialising in the world of finance overflow with burning stories about the firing.
Why does a bank sack one of the most important executives who - with nearly 6% of the shares in Saxo Bank - is also the third largest individual shareholder exceeded only by the two founders, Lars Seier Christensen and Kim Fournais?
The answer is blowing somewhere in between Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen on the one side and Sabet on the other. The fact is that Sabet was suspended from the bank on August 29. The dismissal came as a letter and an email written and signed by Saxo Bank’s lawyer, John Korsø Jensen.
In the letter John Korsø Jensen wrote that Saxo Bank had discovered that Sabet had broken the Swiss stock exchange rules and that he had provided wrong information to the authorities regarding the alleged breaches of the rules. In clear speech, but without Saxo Bank saying it, Sabet was accused of having committed insider trading – an accusation that has never been conclusively confirmed or disproved.
According to the letter from Saxo Bank, the Swiss authorities were also in the process of investigating Sabet’s possible violations of the Swiss stock exchange laws. But as described in Berlingske Business yesterday the problem for Saxo Bank is that the Swiss financial authorities have never been in the process of investigating C.H. Sabet.
This is clear after Berlingske Business in Geneva had the opportunity to read through the correspondence between Sabet and the Swiss financial authorities. In a letter dated November 3, the authorities state that they have never had an investigation and accordingly have no need for assistance from Sabet and his lawyers for a possible investigation.
I will fight
The Swiss banker immediately put himself at the disposal of the authorities as soon as the dismissal was reality. But today, three months later, nothing has happened.
It is not exactly that the fired banker is a defeated man. He describes himself as one of the 300 wealthiest people in Switzerland, he has new project going that will – as he puts it - be launched before anybody dares believe it, and then he has a fighting spirit that radiates from the dark and stocky man. The Porsche is just a sign that the bank account is still in the black. His personal addresses count houses in Geneva and Nice and, naturally, a yacht. In this case a large one, 40 meters and permanently moored in posh Antibes!
But most importantly, he is ready to fight Saxo. At all costs.
“When my parents died they left me some money. But most importantly they had taught me always to treat people in a decent way. I have been thrown out of the bank I created in an indescribable way. The management of Saxo thinks they can do with people what they like – and even get away with it. I cannot accept that. And whereas others might be afraid of Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen and perhaps are also financially dependent on them, I have money and the will to fight against them. For this reason there are already two court cases going in the wake of my dismissal and the big one – the one about compensation for loss of reputation – will be launched before the end of the year,” says Sabet.
The dismissal on August 29 was the culmination of five years of staggering relations between the two Saxo founders and their Swiss executive – relations that exploded with a bang.
“I basically don’t understand what happened. I have had good and close relations with Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen and found that Kim had become one of my really good friends. Those two guys were at my private table when I got married. They weren’t sitting somewhere in the hall but together with me and my wife at our table. That really says most of it,” explains Sabet.
The Danish connection
In 1991 Sabet founded the bank that developed into Synthesis Bank. For the first many years it was a typical “private bank” that worked with and for rich private customers. Later on Sabet wanted to spread the bank’s activities and in this connection came into contact with Kim Fournais and Saxo Bank.
“We were introduced and I liked what I heard. I thought the bank had a good business model and its systems for trading were extremely interesting. This lead to a collaboration that soon became good and profitable for both parties. Over the next years we further developed our connections, and I think we ended by being among the most important cooperation partners for Saxo Bank,” says Sabet.
In step with the increasingly close partnership between the Danish and the Swiss bank, it was clear that Saxo made a comfortable two-digit million kroner profit annually on the cooperation. This was the money Synthesis had to pay Saxo for its use of the special bank systems which have made Saxo Bank stand out.
At some point, however, Sabet began to study whether they could develop new systems on their own to replace those of Saxo, and this sped up the Danish-Swiss connection.
“I thought perhaps that we paid a bit too much to Saxo for using their systems. We started some development work and seriously started thinking about dropping Saxo’s systems and using our own. I think Saxo found out and I am sure that is why they wanted so much to buy my bank,” says Sabet.
But even though Saxo was the party that wanted to buy, the negotiations still ended as a farce. Today Sabet is sorry that he did not decode the danger signals already back then.
“Perhaps I should have had my suspicions already during the negotiations for Saxo’s acquisition of Synthesis. The negotiations were initiated in 2006, and after many talks we agreed on a price and terms. But after we had settled all details, Kim Fournais wanted to renegotiate everything. He wanted the bank at a lower price and wouldn’t do what we had agreed. Later on it turned out that this is the way he operates. In hindsight it reminds me of the way they do business in the souks in Morocco,” says Sabet who refused to sell. One year later, however, the sale went through. Sabet received cash and a shareholding of nearly 6% in Saxo as payment.
Disagreement about bosses
With the purchase Sabet said goodbye to his bank, but hello to a post as top executive for all trading in Saxo Bank. The plan was that the Swiss banker was to retain his residence in Switzerland but travel to Denmark whenever necessary.
But even though Sabet did not frequent Saxo Bank on a daily basis he soon found out that something was wrong.
“I had come to a bank where I observed that people were not pulling in the same direction. I could see a lot of bosses who exclusively acted according to what was best for themselves and their careers. It was at a time when the bank grew explosively, and this was why the individual bosses were allowed to employ many new people. Perhaps it made them more important as bosses, but the fact that there was no cooperation at all was not healthy for the bank,” says Sabet.
Sabet immediately passed on his observations to Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen. But nothing happened.
“Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen were part of the game. They have their own people and only work modestly together. Therefore this was the way that things were done in the bank even though the pair knew that it was not healthy for the bank. I know that the pair tried to get hold of Eric Ryllberg and Karsten Poulsen to stabilise things already in 2006; but at that time they were overbid,” says Sabet.
The relations between particularly Kim Fournais and Sabet developed into a friendship that continued after the takeover of Synthesis. As number three in the bank Sabet was a significant part of the work to ensure Saxo’s continued progress. He was responsible for the large trading area and he set the team of employees. That Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen were satisfied is evident from the quarterly statement that all employees in Saxo receive. This statement evaluates their performance and the areas they are to work with. The enthusiasm for Sabet’s work was unambiguous. The only slight complaint was that Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen would like the see Sabet in Denmark slightly more often.
Wrong model
The relationship between Kim Fournais and Sabet was by now so cordial that the families Fournais and Sabet visited each other, and Kim Fournais stayed several times in Sabet’s luxurious residence in Nice. The 40 meter yacht was also lent to Kim Fournais and his family.
But it wasn’t just another puppet Saxo acquired when they took over Synthesis. In the course of 2007 and the first half of 2008 disagreement began to surface between the two Danish Saxo owners and Sabet.
“Kim Fournais told me that Lars and he were trying to get hold of Erik Ryllberg and Karsten Poulsen. I said we didn’t need two more top executives – and particularly not a couple of people who may be competent leaders but who are not bankers. Saxo needs competent bankers to make sure the bank is sharp and competitive. My recommendation was that Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen should maintain the rein instead of employing even more people in management,” says Sabet.
Despite the recommendation by Sabet, Ryllberg and Poulsen were employed. After their start in August, management met in the middle of August. For Sabet it was immediately clear that the new management structure would cause problems.
“Ryllberg made it clear he wanted to reduce the bank. That he would concentrate efforts in Denmark, and that they would move people and decision-making powers from abroad, including Switzerland. He wanted to bring in foreign experts to the bank in Denmark and employ them according to the Green Card scheme. But that model is no good. Perhaps you can bring in people who work in the bank for precisely three years. But after three years and one day they are gone. They don’t want to pay the high Danish taxes. For that reason alone the model is no good,” says Sabet.
A few days later Sabet went to see Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen. He said that he would not be assigned to Eric Ryllberg, and that it was a solid part of the agreement that Sabet only referred to Fournais and Seier.
“I made it clear that if things were to be run in this way, then I wanted to leave the bank. I offered to do this in a good and quiet way where I stayed on for a couple of months and then sold my stock in the bank as per agreement. I gave this message to the two and then went away on vacation for the rest of the month. I heard nothing until August 29 when I was suddenly dismissed,” says Sabet.
Dramatic dismissal
The dismissal was a drama. According to Berlingske Business’ information, Saxo Bank flew a whole team of IT and legal experts to Switzerland. Several people received a phone call at 3 o’clock at night and were told to immediately meet at the airport where a private jet plane was waiting. In Switzerland the job was to clear up in the bank’s IT system and prevent Sabet from getting access to the systems.
“I discovered that I had been dismissed when I opened an email during my vacation. I immediately tried to ring Kim Fournais, but his telephone was closed. Later I succeeded in catching Lars Seier Christensen, but that didn’t give me much information. The message was simply that I should stay away from the bank,” says Sabet.
With the team of IT and legal experts Kim Fournais had flown to Switzerland. On Friday August 29 he turned up in the bank and summoned the employees to a meeting. They were told about the accusation against Sabet and about his dismissal. They were also warned against contacting him.
“I simply don’t understand what has happened. What I am supposed to have done that justified a dismissal I simply have no idea. The accusations that I should have broken the Swiss stock exchange rules are completely absurd. At an earlier stage I was part of a technical investigation regarding my implementation of some transactions. I shouldn’t have done that, but it could never have justified a dismissal. I cannot see this as other than the result of a kind of power struggle. Perhaps Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen were angry that I gave them my views on Ryllberg. Perhaps they wanted to get rid of me – and tried to get away with it without paying compensation. I don’t know,” says Sabet.
Don’t they bully me
Since then there has been no contact between Sabet and Saxo Bank. The Swiss banker has tried to procure more details about the dismissal and proof that could justify the dismissal. But in vain! Sabet’s lawyer has repeatedly been in contact with the Swiss authorities. The message from them is that there has never been an issue.
It now seems unavoidable that the dismissal will develop into a regular legal dogfight. The first lawsuits have already been submitted.
“My lawyers and I have already submitted the first couple of complaints and another one is on its way. A couple of weeks ago Lars Seier Christensen called me and proposed a meeting in Denmark. I said no to going to Denmark. I don’t mind meeting them, but it must be on neutral ground – I don’t care whether it is Rome, London or New York, but not in Denmark. Since then I have heard nothing,” says Sabet.
And back to the roaring Porsche in front of Hotel La Reserve in Geneva. Like the Porsche is far from the world’s most discreet car models, there is nothing to suggest a quiet discreet solution to the firing of Sabet.
“I am ready to go the whole way. They won’t be allowed to bully me. Maybe they can succeed in bullying others, but not me,” says Sabet.
Berlingske Business has presented a list of questions to the management of Saxo Bank. The bank’s management has not wanted to answer questions about Sabet and the situation prior to the dismissal. In addition to the interview with Sabet, the article is based on a range of interviews with people with an insight in Saxo Bank.
