The highest paid executive at UBS collected more than £6 million in pay and bonuses last year as the Swiss bank doled out billions despite suffering a damaging rogue-trading scandal.
Robert McCann, the head of UBS’s wealth management arm in the United States, received cash and shares worth just under SwFr6 million (£4 million) on top of his base salary of SwFr1.3 million after he executed a dramatic turn- around at the division.
He also received benefits and a contribution to his retirement scheme, according to UBS’s annual report, published yesterday. It meant that Mr McCann, an American, replaced Carsten Kengeter, the head of the investment bank, as the highest paid executive at the Swiss bank last year. Mr Kengeter, who banked a package worth SwFr9.3 million in 2010, waived his annual bonus last year after UBS lost £1.4billion at the hands of alleged rogue trading by Kweku Adoboli.
Mr Adoboli, 31, whose ultimate boss was Mr Kengeter, has pleaded not guilty to fraud and false accounting. He will stand trial in September.
UBS cut bonuses at the investment bank by 60 per cent after the trading loss helped to send annual profits tumbling from SwFr2.2 billion in 2010 to SwFr304 million last year. It still paid out SwFr2.6 billion in bonuses, some of which would have been shared among its 6,670 staff in Britain, mainly bankers.
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The annual report shows that Sergio Ernotti, who replaced Oswald Grübel as chief executive in September, was paid SwFr6.35 million in salary, bonuses, pension and other benefits.
Axel Weber, expected to be anointed chairman by shareholders later this year, will be offered a one-off payment of a year’s salary, or SwFr2 million, as well as 200,000 UBS shares if he assumes the top job. His predecessor, Kaspar Villiger, was offered the same package last year but the scandal prompted him to cut his salary.
Just under 450 “key risk takers” at UBS shared SwFr462 million in bonuses last year — the equivalent of almost £700,000 apiece, according to the report. The staff comprise traders, executives, investment officers and compliance workers who are deemed to be in positions where their work affects the bank’s riskiness.