The immediate cause of the shake-up may however have more to do with revelations last week that six top executives had made profits of SFr11.5m on a SFr3.8m investment in Long Term Strategy (LTS), a secret investment vehicle which allowed Swiss Life's top executives to invest in some of the company's corporate deals.

The company is due to launch a SFr1.2bn ($816m) rights issue to shore up its rickety balance sheet, and the company probably felt it had to appease small shareholders, who are particularly annoyed that the top executives were able to treble their money in less than two years on a highly profitable investment in RMF, a hedge fund manager sold for SFr1.3bn to Man Group of the UK earlier this year.

There is pressure on Andres Leuenberger, 64, chairman of Swiss Life's board, to step down in addition. After the loss upgrade, he said the group planned to strengthen its internal controls and that there would be no repeat of such incidents in the future. But shareholders think he ought to shoulder the blame for lax control of executives which allowed them to make profits which are seen to be out of order, albeit legal under current governance rules.