Executive board compensation up nearly one-third
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Karsten Kengeter, head of investment banking at UBS, earned 20 percent less in 2010 than in 2009, but his salary of CHF874,626 plus bonus still amounted to CHF9.32 million, or over $10 million.
The bank says 88 percent of the bonus will be deferred.
Kengeter was the highest paid member of the bank’s executive board, the UBS annual report, published Tuesday 15 March show. Compensation for the 13-member board rose from CHF68.7m to CHF91m as the company returned to profitability.
Oswald Gruebel, chief executive, refused a bonus for 2010, as he did in 2009 when he joined the bank, because its performance is not yet “satisfactory” he has told journalists in recent weeks, in interviews.
Kaspar Villiger, chairman of the board, “chose to waive a substantial part of the share award and instead to accept a
limited number of 26,940 UBS shares with a fair value of CHF500,000,” UBS notes.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Fourth quarter profits for 2009 were CHF1.205 million, says Swiss bank UBS, offering investors a brighter face after months of gloomy news about its financial results and legal problems. The figure was three times that projected by analysts contacted by Swiss news agency AWP. It leaves the bank with a loss for the year 2009 of CHF2.74 million, from a loss of CHF21.30m in 2008. The company published the figures Tuesday morning 9 February.
All business divisions reported a pre-tax profit. The improved performance, after four straight quarters of losses, was due to cost-cutting and efficiency, with fixed costs reduced to CHF20.2 billion, “broadly in line with the CHF20b target set for 2010″ the financial report indicates.
UBS looks to ethics code to guide bankers’ behaviour
Court ruling against supervisory body opens door to client lawsuits
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – UBS, one of Switzerland’s two large banks, has issued a new code of conduct aimed at its employees and its board of directors, noting that the “Code defines the way UBS does business.” The document is the company’s latest effort to turn itself around after significant outflows of client funds under management, both in Switzerland and abroad, and sluggish share prices for over a year.
UBS operations in the United States were seriously compromised after it admitted to the US Justice Department that it had encouraged some US clients to evade paying taxes. UBS paid a $780 million fine as a result, in an agreement signed in February 2009.
One of its former US wealth division managers, Bradley Birkenfeld, has just begun a 40-month prison sentence in Pennsylvania for the same crime.
Profits likely up, reputation “most valuable asset”
Analysts have been reporting this week that UBS appears to have a profit in the final quarter of 2009, the first in more than a year, but the bank has declined to comment. It will post 2009 results 10 February.
In the new code’s preface, Chairman of the Board Kaspar Villiger and Group CEO Oswald Gruebel say that “in the new UBS we will uncompromisingly treat our reputation as our most valuable asset and we will protect it fiercely.”
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss bank UBS holds a regular Investors Day Tuesday 17 November in Zurich and speculation is running high among media and analysts about what it will say to them. The plan to move the bank back to profitability is undoubtedly high on the list, with Bloomberg suggesting that Oswald Gruebel, chairman, “will probably list hiring in fixed-income as a key element in his turnaround plan,” because the bank is likely to count on its investment bank’s trading of debt securities to pull it out of debt. The Wall Street Journal says investors will be watching Robert McCann, new head of the US wealth management unit, for signs of what the bank plans to do there, and whether Gruebel intends to sell off the unit at some point.
