guy: insurance premium. credit siu'suisse soars. francine: crash crunch. european finance ministers pressure the government. guy: we will be speaking to a key ally of angela merkel. time will tell. will apple's new watch live up to the hype?

good morning, everybody. you are watching "the pulse." francine: a big move at the top of a major bank. credit suisse has named a new ceo. guy: hans nichols joins us from berlin. it is an interesting choice. why do you think him? hans: you probably have to go with share price. credit suisse is down 18% on the year. in terms of strategy, they may want an entirely new look, a

fresh take on what is happening at credit suisse. brady dougan had a reform process, but it was implemented fairly slowly. he was the last man standing but it was not yielding results. there were questions about how much litigation costs there would be. he did settle the claim about tax evasion. but there are other claims out there. how are you going to settle them? the new ceo has a close relationship with jack lew. having a good relationship with washington may be something the shareholders wanted. they may have just looked at the share price of their respective companies and thought, we need a change, here is a strong leader. we have had an american lead the bank now for a frenchman.

francine: [laughter] i'm sure that's exactly what they were thinking. guy: time for a frenchman. [laughter] hans: you look at how long brady dougan stayed there. he was the only ceo who went through the financial crisis european crisis, litigation challenges. he never really solved the issue about what to do with fixed income commodities, and currency trading. he paired it down, but he did not double down or reinvest the way deutsche bank did. every quarter, it seems like we see negative numbers or numbers that disappoint from that sector and he still has a big footprint. if credit suisse continues to function as a traditional investment bank that is going to stay the same.

his legacy may not be easily determined. guy: we are moving across the square to ubs and look at what happened there. you've got to see the results they generated in terms of share price. the model does not seem that complicated. hans: true. but eventually if you are going to take the brady dougan view of the world eventually that is going to come back. there will be a couple of big players and they are going to have good quarters. it is a debate of timing and strategy. right now, it looks like brady dougan is on the wrong side of that trade. but his strategy may prove to be more long-term viable for the swiss bank. francine: the very latest on prudential and credit siu's

--credit suisse. guy: we will get the news about prudential a little bit later on. in the meantime we want to show you the big move we have seen in the currency markets. the single currency is very much under pressure. you continue to see the tightening up in the credit spread story. the german 10 year is continuing its journey to the zero bound. euro-dollar 1.0756. francine: incredible. the great finance minister will go into talks with creditors in brussels -- greek finance minister will go into talks with creditors in brussels today.

the eurogroup is putting pressure on the country to open its books before the credit is released. guy: now to brazil. more than $10,000 cash confiscated is apparently missing. a judge was caught driving one of the former billionaire's cars. where is the money? francine: i love that story. it just keeps on giving. apple unveiled its first new device in five years. the smart watch. the starting price is $350. the company also released its macbook which weighs 900 grams. guy: that brings us to our

twitter question of the day. it is about the apple watch. would you buy one? more importantly, why would you buy one? francine: would you buy the first version? i'm thinking i will eventually buy one. guy: it is pretty big. tweet us. we are back in a couple of minutes. ♪

francine: welcome back to "the

pulse." guy: let's get back to our top story. credit suisse's appointment of tidjane thiam. what does this say about cs's future in investment banking? some people are surprised. others are surprised that it is him, but less surprised that it is a non-investment banker. >> i am not surprised it is a non-investment banker. the swiss government and regulators will focus on appointing those who are not in investment banking. i think that this is an innovative appointment because he knows asia, which is vitally important to a well-balanced business. he knows government and how politicians work. credit suisse is a big provider

of services to government. the market is relatively impressed by the appointment. francine: is this justified? brady dougan did not get it all wrong. chris: he is a thoroughly decent man. a great reputation of working hard and has done some very good things, especially with capital. he was unfortunate in saying, we don't have the kind of tax problems ubs has. nevertheless, it was embarrassing. he was criticized in 2009 for not being more aggressive in investment banking. suddenly, he is being criticized for not pulling back quickly enough. it shows you how quickly markets change. guy: is it simple?

chris: people keep saying to me make it look like ubs. ubs was smart in stepping back from fixed income. credit suisse have a really strong credit franchise, leveraged lending, emerging markets activity. brady dougan was key to try to push that through. however, they will have to step back from certain businesses. they were not big and some of the more -- in some of the more tough issues. he will say, let's really focus on return on equity. francine: and also asia. is it for the ultra high net worth individuals? chris: if you are not growing in

asia you are not growing and wealth management. the growth in europe and elsewhere is not very strong. that is where all the new millionaires are appearing. the investment banks with wealth managers have an advantage. from that perspective, they have a tremendous advantage. they must grow in asia if they are going to continue to be a leader in wealth management. guy: what does credit suisse look like in five years? chris: it will have a strong wealth management business with an asset manager alongside it, a strong domestic banking business. whenever i run my numbers of the top nine banks in the world banks

in the world and look at equity revenues that they post every quarter, credit suisse is always in the top three, normally after goldman sachs and morgan stanley. fixed income will be more and brady dougan had set them on that path. francine: we are not going to see some kind of big movement or job cuts or reorganization in the first six months of tidjane thiam? chris: i'm sure they will be some reorganization. no ceo comes in without things they think they can do better. of course there will be change but i don't see wholesale change . i think it will be fine-tuning what brady dougan has left behind. over 15% return on equity will be a target and the ability to return a lot of capital in the future to investors for buybacks and dividends. guy: do you have a buy rating

attached to it now? does he have a buy rating attached? chris: you see the markets this morning. it does feel like it. tidjane thiam was a very smart move by the credit suisse board. it is not what people expected, but he can tick so many boxes and take this impressive brand name forward. francine: what is in it for tidjane thiam? a challenge? why would you accept it if you were him? chris: it is a great company. i think credit suisse has a bigger place on the world stage because it has a broader business. it is based in switzerland. it gives them a chance to make an even bigger mark on the financial services industry than he has done before. guy: i am trying to relate those

two things? he is going to make it bigger mark and not change much that brady dougan has done. chris: you've got carried away with everything that has happened since the crisis. i think there are some great franchises in credit suisse and they are going to keep building. francine: the share price is up 7%. someone out there is going to expect some kind of huge radel shake -- rattle shake. chris: they are not strong enough, they are not big enough in a business with a capital requirements went up to the highest. let's get on with getting rid of the remaining legacy assets and let's make the most of it. a wealth manager on the scale of that, swiss banks never talk about the return on equity. these businesses make 40% return

on equity. it is making sure that becomes more visible. we could jump back to jamie dimon's problem about giving more visibility to consumer banking and asset management. i still think these guys will say, we have some strong businesses. guy: what is the swiss regulator going to say to tidjane thiam? chris: don't mess up is the most important thing. [laughter] they want to play out what switzerland has in terms of banking and asset management. investment banking is a very interesting business and very important for the country, but caution must be the watchword. they don't want to go down the road they went. guy: there are some huge risks, though. francine: the first six months.

at the time, they said, it is but important -- it is important to take risks in the first six months. chris: credit suisse has gone through the most important change since the crisis. i think you are making a mistake if you come in and shake it up immediately. i think what you should do is come in and sharpen the returns the bank makes. this becomes a cash cow. it becomes a dividend stock. it becomes an income stock pushing money back to shareholders. that is what people want to see. there were a lot of banks around the world like that, they are not alone in that. guy: it is a prize asset. chris: the big focus for the u.s. banks is how much will they be able to return to dividends and capital? francine: thank you so much for

your time, chris wheeler. let's go back to last year when i was joined by tidjane thiam for the leaders lunch. we asked him where he thought he would be five years from then. tidjane thiam: i don't know. i lost my faith in the ability to predict things a long time ago. [indiscernible] i have become a bit philosophical. i hope to be surrounded by people whose company i enjoy and who i am happy to see every day. it is as simple as that. ♪

francine: welcome back. time for a check on the top stories. guy: u.k. lawmakers told hsbc's top banker that he is incompetent. hsbc's chief executive defended his personal tax arrangement. >> my inability to convince anyone that these were not tax

evasions caused cap -- reputation damage to the bank. francine: investigations into sanction violations on commerzbank. guy: there has never been a better time to be born female. even the women still do not enjoy the economic opportunities that men do. that is according to the bill and melinda gates foundation. there is still a lot of work to do on women's issues. melinda gates: i don't think we are there yet in terms of really empowering women. it is all types of work. until we have far more women as ceos and far more women in congress in all of those

different ways, i don't think we are even close to where we need to be. francine: it depends very much on where you are born as a woman. euro area finance ministers are piling the pressure on greece. they're questioning great commitments -- greek commitments on delivering. guy: last night, the ministers were gathering. they did not just talk about greece, but they did talk about greece. what did they say? >> there was a lot of drama with greece. a lot of pressure applied by the eu finance ministers. there was not much concrete progress in brussels. they agreed to start the technical discussions on the greek reform by wednesday in brussels.

whether greece can receive the next 7 billion euros that they are scheduled to receive as soon as this month. the question on everybody's lips was whether greece could run out of cash very soon. i put that question to the eurogroup head after the meeting. >> i don't know if and when they run out of cash because i don't control athens. that is their responsibility. all i know is that we can probably release further loans from the european funds if there is a full agreement on the total package and if they start implementing reforms. so far, two weeks of gone by and neither of the two have happened. at the moment, they are still on the rhône, but we stand ready to work with them, hopefully starting on wednesday. >> the eurogroup said that

greece has wasted the last two weeks, but the deal last night was pretty quick, based on a discussion between mario draghi and the greek finance minister. mario draghi asked him, can we start the technical discussions? the greek finance minister nodded. mario draghi said, when wednesday? and the deal was done. francine: how did they react? it is going to be a difficult sell back home in greece. >> it is going to be very hard. the greek finance minister said that no time has been wasted for greece in the past two weeks that it was a matter of implementing more reforms for greece. there was a big misunderstanding, he said, with the press and what he presented on friday was just the first

batch of reforms. back to you. francine: thank you. stay with us. we speak about germany and their take on what is going on in brussels. ♪

francine: welcome back to "the pulse." live from london. guy: good morning, everybody. francine: credit suisse has named a new chief executive officer. tidjane thiam will replace brady dougan. guy: greece is resuming talks with its creditors in brussels today, alongside technical talks in athens. they are trying to avoid running out of cash as soon as this month, as european finance

ministers are putting pressure on the government to open up its books. francine: apple has unveiled their smart watch, the first new gadget in five years. it will cost $350. they have also released a macbook computer weighing just 900 grams. guy: the apple watch is now fully functioning. bloomberg got a hands-on look. >> the apple watch is finally here, again. this time, it actually works. ♪ unlike the demo models we saw six months ago, the watch is fully functioning. it comes in this 42 millimeter size and a smaller 35mm size. you give up a lot of screen real estate for that comfort.

it can differentiate between a kick desk quick touch and a more deliberate cap. -- quick touch and a more deliberate tap. it can differentiate between a it can track health, fitness, and sleep. it does not have gps or cellular connectivity. there is no word yet about onboard storage for things like photos. battery life will be 18 hours. the screen goes dark when you are not doing anything and turns back on when you raise your wrist. this should match well with the battery life for the iphone and is on par with other devices on the market. the price will be $10,000 for the solid gold apple watch edition. the presale will begin on april 10. delivery on april 24. francine: i kind of like it. i have not seen one. so i don't know.

nate langston was at the launch in berlin yesterday. i heard it is a little bit heavy. is that right? i think we have technical issues. i was really looking forward to hearing from nate. i heard that first of all, you have the normal version of $349. you can get the same watch at $10,000 and it is solid gold. guy: it is not enough to justify that spread, not enough gold. the intrinsic value, you don't get a lot of gold for that. francine: at the same time, i did hear by going through the internet that it is a little bit heavy. if it is heavy, this is our twitter question of the day. would you buy the apple watch? why would you buy it now?

if you look at the various versions of the iphone, it gets better and better. i would imagine, although i am not a techie, that this would get lighter and lighter. guy: you would imagine so. i remember my first ipod was quite clunky. now you don't even buy one because you have your iphone. nate links in his back. -- nate linksangson is back. nate: it is a lot lighter than the product may actually look. i got to try the 18 karat gold edition. in my hands, it looks like a luxurious watch. i am not a perfect judge of how good it is on the wrist but it certainly feels very, very nice. francine: what was it like? there was much excitement.

what was it like being there? nate: in many ways, it was a fairly standard apple event. everyone sees the keynote and then goes around the back and gets a couple of hours of hands-on time with the products. there were certainly fewer people there been previous events and that was apple's way of giving people there a longer experience with trying to get the device to fit properly. they are putting quite an emphasis on making sure that the devices are being fitted to people correctly in the store. that is something we see a lot and watch outlets. that is something that apple wants to give plenty of time to at the event. other than that, it is fairly standard apple. guy: look and feel. you like the look and feel. what about what it does. functionality.

talk me through that. nate: the functionality is twofold. on the one hand, it is an extension of the iphone. it will bring any notifications that come into the iphone on the screen. notifications, instagram, anything like that. it is one of the first products that apple has a really square focus on health, fitness tracking something that is going to try to keep you motivated throughout the day. as someone who sits at a desk in an office, it might be nice to have a device that vibrates when you have been sitting down to long. whether that is a game changer or not i have to wait and see until i have one for more than a couple of hours. it seems interesting. we will have to watch quite closely to see if it lives up to expectations, revenue wise. they are betting on this being the next big product.

it is certainly since the iphone. francine: i am already so addicted to my phone. if i have it on my wrist, my family will not be happy about this. demand. apple say there is huge demand. how much are they anticipating? how much do we actually know how people will be interested? it is basically also rivaling something like the nike fuel. nate: there are elements that rival other fitness bands, but the other target competition are watches like the pebble smart watch. that is an interesting one because that is a crowd funded business. that one raised $1 million in an hour when it was put on kick starter.

there are a huge amount of people who want to pay up front to have products developed. the apple product has the apple sheen and polish to it, but also adds the apple price tag. it is higher than what some people were expecting, but is relatively competitive to extremely expensive watches. guy: what do we think about the price point? price points are pretty expensive anyway. is the relative spread over other products in the market actually as big or is it too big ? i'm tereus about the relative position. nate -- i'm curious about the relative position. nate: because it is such a new category, there is no defect of standard of how you do -- defacto standard of how you

do a smart watch. it is something that has been around for so little that nobody knows exactly what these products are going to do for our daily life. for that matter, the fact that it costs 300 pounds to begin with it might not make a huge deal of difference. the other side of the argument is that this is going to hopefully get people who have never worn a watch or get the people who stopped wearing them years ago. that is going to be a tough one. one analyst said that if it works, it will set the industry a light, but if it fails it could set the industry back for years. francine: really interesting. thank you so much.

the problem is that you have to charge it every 18 hours. guy: that is my issue. i never take my watch off. francine: one watch i saw yesterday costs a cool $40 million. guy: the watch from apple now seems very affordable. francine: [laughter] guy: coming up, greece's battle for 7 billion euros. we will be live in athens before speaking to michael fuchs. let's look at euro-dollar. francine: there it is. what is next? 1.05? maybe. guy: if you are looking to go on summer holiday to the eurozone we have gone through 1.40 on the pound. ♪

francine: welcome back to "the pulse." live from london. guy: the britannia's carnival -- the britannia is carnival's

biggest cruise ship ever. she will begin her maiden voyage on the 14th. francine: i wonder what she is going to call her? i love this stuff. guy: britannia. francine: nevermind. there is a two year revival plan for virgin atlantic. they have posted a profit. guy: rba reported a 45% decline -- rwe reported a 45% decline in profit. how bad was it? hans: they basically hit estimates, but the estimates were bad.

you have seen all of the green energy hit the market. they came in at 1.2 8 billion euros. -- 1.28 billion euros. they say they are not going to change their dividend. germany is too big with utilities. they are figuring out how they are going to be prosperous. there is more of a switch toward renewables. here is what the ceo had to say. he said the crisis in conventional power generation continues. we will focus on growth opportunities in the future without losing sight for the need of strict financial discipline. they did go ahead and complete the 5.1 billion euros sale of assets to the russian billionaire. while you have two utility companies in germany, they are

taking different paths. rwe is staying with the same model. theot other has split. the question is will rwe stay the same? how long can they continue under their current structure? guy: these are questions we will be putting to the cfo later in the program. we will also look at some of the key debt metrics. we will watch that very carefully. rwe cfo is up a little later on the program. francine: coming up, greece's battle for 7 billion euros. we are live in athens before speaking to chancellor merkel's cdu ally, michael fuchs. ♪

francine: welcome back to "the pulse." we are live and streaming on your tablet, your phone, bloomberg.com. guy: we are getting interesting little comments coming through from the outgoing ceo of prudential and the incoming ceo of credit suisse. he says it is not healthy to stay too long at one business. i wonder if that is a reflection

on brady dougan, possibly. perhaps i reading between the lines too much. francine: he is also saying this is a great time to leave because prudential had a great year. one of the questions that he was fielding from analysts is probably, is this going to be difficult for the new potential ceo because you had such a great year -- prudential ceo because you had such a great year last year? guy: there is no hospital pass i.e. i am not leaving at the top and there are still good times to come. tidjane thiam is a very smart guy and good at reading the future. francine: when you do a pass -- guy: it is passing to somebody just before you get the tackle. you give the ball to somebody else and they are the ones who end up in the hospital and not you. francine: that is the latest on

prudential. let's turn to greece, where cash supplies were lopw.w. guy: the country needs 7 billion euros in aid. let's get over to athens now. walk me through the timing. eurogroup finance ministers are suggesting that there may be weeks left in which greece is solvent. >> it seems to be a matter of weeks. it is hard to predict when the stockholder move could happen. mr. varoufakis was asked several times yesterday and he did not say. it all depends on revenue and cash flows.

they 02 billion euros in debt payment this week and it should be fine, but as we approach the end of march, things will be getting tighter. it has been important to describe what is happening here. the greek state is gradually shutting down nonessential operations. public investment is put on hold. government subsectors like universities and hospitals are building up with suppliers and vendors. i've at investors are reluctant to invest because of the uncertainty. -- private investors are reluctant to invest because of the uncertainty. we have seen a steep drop in deposits, even steeper than what we saw in 2002. the whole economy is a stick seating. even if greece manages to meet its debt obligations, this

uncertainty is pulling the country back into a double-digit recession. when we are talking about a country with 26% unemployment this is nothing short of a disaster. francine: what further hurdles does the government still have? >> last month, the government reluctantly agreed to implement a list of wide reforms, from pension reform to public sector overhaul. the euro area finance ministers expected that it would start working on delivering on those reforms. instead, the government was busy over the past few weeks in drawing up a new list of other measures which were not really directly related to what they had promised. the problem seems to be that the government may face an internal opposition if it is seen as

betraying expectations and not delivering on its campaign promises. the internal promises are as important as the external promises. guy: it is the troika, but we are not calling at the troika. does anybody believe that anything has really changed? >> yeah it seems like a groundhog day. the greek government promised to deliver on certain reforms last month and then it did not. this is the fourth eurogroup in a row that has yielded no results whatsoever. one can only guess what will happen now. the most likely scenario is that the government will be facing a worsening grant. it will be forced to deliver it at least on some of those reforms just enough for a partial bailout disbursement, which will help it ever a

default in the following weeks. francine: thank you so much. >> the clock is ticking. francine: the clock certainly is ticking for everyone at this point. thank you so much. let's quickly check on the currency markets. guy: a busy, busy morning on the currency markets. we have gone through some interesting little levels. the technical setup is quite interesting. from a technical point of view we could be driven down from the parity level. 1.0754, we are down by nearly 1%. you are looking at euro sterling on the move. if you look at it from a sterling euro point to view, which, if you are going on holiday this summer, you will we are through 1.40. francine: it is not bad if you want to go to greece or spain. your holiday got a lot cheaper. guy: let's take a quick look at

equity markets. a little softer. down by 0.3%, 0.4%. ftse is down by 27 points. the real action is in fixed income. francine: coming up, here is what we have for you. for our listeners, it is the first word. in a couple of minutes, we will have michael fuchs one of the main key allies for the chancellor angela merkel. we will talk to him about greece. it is interesting that the commission has not been that hard on france. i wonder what his take is on that. guy: i'm interested in what he has to say. we will talk about credit suisse and their new surprise ceo. tidjane thiam is joining the business. the share price over the long-term is up very nicely.

-- over the long-term is down, but this morning, it is up very nicely. francine: we will also talk about apple;'s new watch. ♪

tom: the vice president's scathing in criticism of senate republicans. they advise iran on president obama us negotiations in a "

remedial civics lesson." american brady dugan exits and will be replaced by tidjane thiam of ivory coast. good morning, everyone. this is bloomberg "surveillance," live from new york. i'm tom keene. joining me olivia sterns. brendan greeley on hiatus. olivia: and administration exposed when accused gop lawmakers are trying to establish a back channel with iran to scuttle the nuclear talks. president obama said the republican move will not stop negotiations. >> i think it is somewhat ironic to see some members of congress