UBS’ top executives will not receive bonuses in 2008

ZURICH: UBS, the European bank with the highest losses from the US subprime crisis, said its top executives won���t get any bonus payments for 2008. The 12 members of the executive board, including chief executive officer Marcel Rohner and chairman Peter Kurer, will receive only their fixed salary for this year, UBS spokesman Dominique Gerster said by telephone on Sunday, confirming a report in Swiss newspaper SonntagsBlick.

UBS���s decision follows protests about executive bonuses after Switzerland���s biggest bank received a $59.2 billion aid package from the government and the central bank last month. German competitor Deutsche Bank said last month that both its executive and supervisory boards will forgo 2008 bonuses.

Zurich-based UBS plans to publish its revised compensation policy on November 14, Gerster said. The bank is also reviewing possibilities to allow former executives to repay part of their compensation voluntarily, he added.
The Swiss Social Democratic Party���s youth organization and Switzerland���s biggest trade union staged protests at various UBS branches in the past two weeks, demanding repayment of all UBS bonuses for the last five years and a cap on all compensation at 500,000 Swiss francs ($431,816).

UBS paid a total of 12.5 billion francs in performance-related compensation for its more than 83,000 employees last year. Members of the executive board received total pay of 72 million francs for 2007, of which about 9.5 million francs was in fixed salaries.

Marcel Ospel, 58, has received total compensation of almost 137 million francs as chief executive officer and later chairman of UBS since 2000. He hasn���t disclosed how much he will be paid for this year after resigning from his position in April. Ospel didn���t get a bonus for 2007.

Rohner, 44, who became CEO in July 2007, declined variable pay to which he was entitled for the part of that year he was in charge of wealth management. UBS is paying former CEO Peter Wuffli, former finance chief Clive Standish and ex-investment banking head Huw Jenkins a combined 93.6 million francs in salary, deferred compensation and consulting fees from 2007 to 2009.

Separately, Swiss weekly SonntagsZeitung reported that UBS is raising salaries for some client advisers by about 10% as of November 1 to stem defections. Goerster said the bank only made ���salary adjustments for several dozens��� of wealth management advisers in Switzerland, declining to comment on details.

���It���s a matter of very successful advisers and advisers whose salaries had to be adjusted, in part because of much higher compensation at domestic competitors,��� he said. ���We have to make such comparisons every year, as the competitive situation in Switzerland can change.���