Swiss Bank UBS Hikes Bonus Pool, CEO Pay While Industry Cuts Benefits

UBS Group AG increased its bonus pool for top executives and total pay for its CEO in 2015, helped by a surge in profits from its investment banking services. The Swiss bank increased its overall bonus pool by 14 percent compared with a year earlier, to 3.5 billion Swiss francs ($3.6 billion), according to its annual report released Friday.

CEO Sergio Ermotti was the highest paid member on the group executive board, with a total compensation of 14.3 million francs, up 28 percent from 2014, the report said.

The disclosure bucks the trend of European banks and financial agencies who have curbing bonus pools. Deutsche Bank AG and Credit Suisse Group AG, hurt by a slump in trading revenue, cut variable pay.

Deutsche Bank, which houses Europe’s largest investment bank, said earlier this month that it cut its bonus pool to 2.41 billion euros ($2.7 billion) after posting its first annual loss since 2008. Meanwhile, UBS' Swiss rival Credit Suisse has announced plans to reduce its bonus pool by 11 percent.

London-based Barclays Plc. cut its total compensation costs by 6 percent to 8.3 billion pounds ($12 billion) in 2015.

According to Friday’s annual report, a drop in legal costs helped Zurich-based UBS deliver a net income of 6.2 billion francs in 2015, up 79 percent over the previous year and its best performance since 2010.

“Our compensation decisions reflect our commitment to deliver competitive compensation for excellent performance," Ann Godbehere, who heads the pay committee in UBS’ board of directors, said in the Friday report. The lender also said it had cut performance awards for employees “at the lower end” of the scale to help raise the share of cash compensation to better performing executives.