Aniket Pujari(Bloomberg) — UBS Group AG awarded Chief Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti just under 15 million Swiss francs ($17 million) for 2024, keeping his compensation below the maximum possible at a time of heightened scrutiny in Switzerland over bankers’ pay.
Ermotti’s package includes 2.8 million francs in fixed and 12.1 million francs in variable compensation, UBS said in its annual report on Monday. Under rules adjusted last year, executive board members can receive bonus pay of up to 7 times fixed compensation.
The package compares with the 14.4 million francs Ermotti received for 9 months in 2023, when he returned to lead the bank following UBS’s emergency takeover of Credit Suisse. He remains one of Europe’s best-paid bank CEOs, though on a full year-basis his compensation has been trimmed since 2023.
The total bonus pool at UBS for 2024 came in at $4.7 billion, compared with $4.5 billion for 2023.
Attention over UBS’s compensation policy comes at a time when the bank is reliant on political goodwill with regard to its future capital requirements. The government has proposed measures which could result in a $25 billion increase, an outcome which the bank has lobbied strongly against. Legislation on the matter will begin its path through the Swiss parliament this year.
Ermotti’s 2023 pay caused uproar in Switzerland, with Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter saying it exceeded “the imagination of any normal citizen.” Earlier this month lawmakers of the upper house of parliament backed a motion to limit bankers’ total annual compensation to between 3 and 5 million Swiss francs, in a bill which will now go before the lower house.
–With assistance from Paula Doenecke.
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