UBS chief’s pay slashed to fraction of 2006 level

by Dave Nixon

Story link: UBS chief’s pay slashed to fraction of 2006 level

UBS, the principal European casualty of the US subprime calamity, confirmed on Tuesday that its struggle with securitised residential mortgages had affected the very top of the company.

Marcel Ospel, UBS’s expert chairman and the focus of many shareholders’ anger, saw his 2007 recompense reduce in size to SFr2.57m ($2.58m), less than a 10th of the SFr26.6m he received in 2006, based on figures in the group’s annual report.

The report established Mr Ospel’s remuneration had been limited to his SFr2m base salary, SFr307,310 in benefits in kind, and SFr261,000 in contributions to his retirement plan.

Although Mr Ospel would not have qualified for a bonus anyway, the report confirmed that Marcel Rohner, the young previous head of private banking promoted to chief executive last July, had surrendered the additional payments to which he would have been entitled for part of the year.

However the report gave no particulars of his pay, beyond noting that Rory Tapner, chairman and chief executive of Asia-Pacific operations, was the highest paid member of the group’s executive board headed by Mr Rohner, and received SFr10.3m

The report furthermore revealed UBS’s three most well-known executive casualties last year had left the bank well rewarded.

According to the annual report, hard copies of which will become available next week, Peter Wuffli, Clive Standish and Huw Jenkins together received SFr33m for their periods of employment in 2007.

All three executives have kept a low profile since their exit. Mr Wuffli in January opened a private office in Zurich; Mr Standish’s family is believed to have decided to remain in Switzerland until the end of the school year, while Mr Jenkins remains under contract as an “adviser”.

The report said the three would receive a joint total of SFr60.6m for the standard 12-month termination periods of their contracts.