Credit Suisse upped the remuneration of chief executive Brady Dougan by one-third last year, likely adding to public and political dismay over the scale of banker pay in a year when the Swiss bank’s stock stalled.
Anger at pay levels has already driven Swiss voters to back some of the world’s strictest controls on executive pay, forcing public companies to give shareholders a binding vote on compensation.
European officials, emboldened by a victory over banker bonuses, are also expected to propose legislation giving shareholders the right to challenge executive pay amid public anger at Wall Street-style excess in the boardrooms.
Credit Suisse’s investment banking rival drew fire last week when it disclosed a nearly US$9 million payout for CEO Sergio Ermotti last year and a US$26 million welcome package for its new investment bank chief.
UBS was bailed out by the Swiss government nearly five years ago.
Dougan, who sparked a public outcry in 2010 when he received about 70 million Swiss francs (US$74 million at current exchange rates) in shares from a 2004 stock-linked bonus plan and was awarded SF19 million for 2009, received SF7.77 million last year.
The bank’s top earner two years running was Robert Shafir, promoted to co-head of the newly merged private bank and asset management unit in November last year.
His overall pay was SF10.59 million last year, up from SF8.50 million a year before. Shafir is also head of the Americas for Credit Suisse.
Part of Shafir’s pay was a SF1.87 million share in the bank’s private equity and hedge funds, meant to tie his interests with those of a wider asset management restructuring.
Shafir, who was already granted a stake in alternative investment funds in 2008, could be set for awards of US$10 million if the funds achieve certain returns over their lifetime of up to 15 years, according to footnotes in the annual report.
The bank’s compensation body echoed comments from last year, saying Shafir “successfully repositioned the former asset management division while improving financial results through higher net revenues and lower total operating expenses.”
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day