Leaving aside the odd dictator, it is hard to think of a leader who has clung onto power with greater tenacity than Marcel Ospel, who has finally been forced to resign as chairman of troubled UBS following a string of debt writedowns.
The latest $19bn (â¬12bn) batch of writedowns and losses relating to US real estate and structured credit, take UBS' grand total of writedowns to $27.9bn. (Today's figure is split evenly between losses and writedowns, meaning the latter accounts for a fresh $9.5bn hit, according to UBS.)
