Former SNB chief hired by BlackRock

BlackRock headquarters in New York Keystone

Philipp Hildebrand, who resigned as chairman of the Swiss National Bank (SNB) in January amid controversy over his wife’s currency trades, is joining the world’s largest asset management company BlackRock.

Based in London, Hildebrand will look after institutional clients in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia from October, a company statement said.

In recent years BlackRock has become the world’s largest asset manager with some $3.68 trillion directly under management.

Hildebrand resigned from the SNB in January after emails cast doubt on his claims not to have known about a foreign exchange trade made by his wife Kashya in August, weeks before the SNB moved to stop the Swiss franc climbing.
 
Hildebrand was accused of insider trading after details of the currency transactions were leaked. The SNB chairman denied the charge.

The exposure of the Hildebrand trades through leaked bank documents  is still causing waves in Swiss politics.

On Monday parliament gave the green light for the strongman of the rightwing Swiss People’s Party, Christoph Blocher, to be investigated over alleged violations of banking secrecy laws in connection with the case.

The decision paves the way for the justice authorities to launch a comprehensive investigation to establish to what extent Blocher was involved in passing on copies of Hildebrand’s confidential bank transactions.

Hildebrand was a member of the SNB governing board from 2003 until January 2012. He was the youngest ever SNB Chairman when he was appointed to the position in January 2010.

In March, Hildebrand was named senior visiting fellow at the newly founded Blavatnik School of Government in Oxford.