Four years ago, Credit Suisse celebrated five decades in Australia. At the glitzy harbourside diner Cafe Sydney, Ross Bradfield showed off a historical curio – the advertisement announcing the arrival of First Boston, as the investment bank was known at the time.

It was a room of heavyweight bankers who had passed through Credit Suisse over those 50 years, including then country head, John Knox; Global Infrastructure Partners managing partner Rob Stewart; then AMP chief executive Francesco de Ferrari, and former Credit Suisse chairman David Murray and dealmaker John Wylie.