(12 February 2010 – Europe) UBS, one of the banks hit hardest by the GFC, has announced that it will not be disbursing around 300 million Swiss-francs in bonuses to its senior staff.The bank announced the decision to drop payments, amounting to around 10 percent of its bonus pool, after failing to make a net profit for 2009, a condition of the bank’s ‘Conditional Variable Compensation Plan’ (CVCP).
After much public outrage at bankers’ bonuses, USB overhauled its bonus structure to reduce risk taking behaviours and more closely align pay with long-term performance.
Oswald Grübel, chief executive, said he expected affected executives, including many of the bank’s top earners, to be realistic about pay, given the highly charged climate.
Bank salaries and bonuses are politically influenced and have become a controversial public topic as never before, Mr Grübel told employees.
The CVCP and equity-based compensation primarily affects colleagues who have a relatively high total compensation package and the bank expects them especially to be realistic and to exemplify this attitude among their peers and team members, Mr Grübel told the Financial Times.