Zurich chair resigns over suicide of finance chief

Josef Ackermann, the former head of Deutsche Bank, yesterday resigned as chairman of Zurich Insurance over the apparent suicide of the Swiss insurer’s finance chief.

Ackermann said the family of chief financial officer Pierre Wauthier, who had worked at Europe’s third largest insurance group for 17 years, believed he shared some of the blame for his death.

Wauthier’s death came just weeks after the head of telecoms firm Swisscom, Carsten Schloter, died in another apparent suicide.