Investment banking at Credit Suisse used to be so much fun. Under the leadership of Allen Wheat in the late 1990s and John Mack in the early Noughties, the bank used to lurch from one quarter to the next, with violent swings in its trading revenues and profits.

Under Brady Dougan, now group chief executive, and the late Paul Calello, the investment bank reinvented itself but never quite cast off the impression that it played slightly fast and loose.