UBS (UBSN.VX) hiked chief executive Sergio Ermotti’s pay by a fifth last year to 10.73 million Swiss francs ($12.30 million), according to the Swiss bank’s annual report published on Friday.
But UBS’s highest paid executive was investment banking chief Andrea Orcel, who earned 11.43 million francs in 2013. Chairman Axel Weber was paid nearly 6.1 million francs.
Pay is a closely watched topic in Switzerland, where voters last year backed some of the world’s strictest controls on executive remuneration, forcing public companies to give shareholders a binding vote on compensation.
UBS is looked at with particular scrutiny because taxpayers funded a 6 billion franc bailout of the bank in 2008.
The government sold its stake in UBS at a profit the following year, and the bank bought back a fund of once-toxic assets from the Swiss National Bank in 2013, but bankers’ bonuses nevertheless remain a hot-button issue for shareholders.
Last month, CEO Ermotti said compensation at the bank was now “normalized” from 2012, when awards were cut after UBS had to pay out $1.5 billion to settle interest rate allegations.
But UBS drew criticism from shareholders earlier this year, when it said it had increased its bonus pool by 28 percent to 3.2 billion francs from 2012.
UBS had little new to say about current investigations, including one alleging manipulation in the $5 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market, but mentioned that its review into its forex business also included its precious metals business.
The Swiss bank approached U.S. authorities last year in the hope of gaining antitrust immunity if charged with wrongdoing, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters last month.
REUTERS
