UBS Shareholders Urged to Reject Bank's Compensation Report

(Bloomberg) -- UBS Group AG investors should reject the the firm’s compensation report, shareholder adviser Glass Lewis said, citing high fines in a legal dispute and the generally lackluster performance of the bank’s shares.

UBS had proposed a pay package that included 14.1 million francs ($14 million) in compensation for Chief Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti for last year. While that’s down slightly from the 14.2 million francs he received in 2017, executive pay at UBS appears consistently above peers, Glass Lewis said in an emailed report.

“On balance, we do not believe shareholders have been presented with sufficient evidence of a link between pay and performance,” Glass Lewis wrote. “Shareholders could have reasonably expected the board to use its discretion to adjust variable compensation to reflect the shareholder experience.”

Ermotti has come under pressure as shares of the lender declined 32 percent last year and the bank was ordered to pay a record $5 billion in a French tax scandal. Last month, the CEO stunned investors by saying that conditions in the first quarter were the toughest in years, forcing the bank to slow hiring and deepen cost cuts.

Glass Lewis also criticized compensation at crosstown rival Credit Suisse Group AG, telling investors earlier that they should reject that bank’s compensation report as well. A pay increase by 30 percent for CEO Tidjane Thiam was “unjustified” even after he delivered Credit Suisse’s first annual profit in four years. At 12.7 million francs, Thiam would still be making less than Ermotti.

Ermotti Pay

Ermotti’s compensation exceeds pay given to CEOs at peers, the shareholder adviser said, adding that his base salary is 67 percent higher than the average at European banks. It criticized UBS for benchmarking executive-pay levels against large U.S. financial companies, arguing that most of those firms have a significantly greater market capitalization.

Still, Glass Lewis acknowledged that both operating and net profit increased in the past fiscal year, as did the proposed dividend to shareholders.

UBS said that the bank’s overall bonus pool for 2018 was down as was compensation for the Group Executive Board and the CEO, while returns to shareholders rose.

“We believe a clear link between pay and performance has been presented in our compensation report,” the spokesman said in an emailed statement.

The shareholder adviser recommended voting for executive compensation, saying that it was “overall supportable” despite the concerns raised about the company’s performance and the rejection of the compensation report, which details how pay is structured as well as the bank’s policies and procedures.

To contact the reporters on this story: Patrick Winters in Zurich at pwinters3@bloomberg.net;Jan-Henrik Förster in Zurich at jforster20@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dale Crofts at dcrofts@bloomberg.net, Dan Reichl, Daniel Taub

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