There will no bonuses for Credit Suisse's executive board this year. At the same time, the bonus pool for employees is cut in half.
The verdict of the compensation report published by Credit Suisse on Tuesday is brutal. Management missed the financial targets needed to justify special compensation, while non-financial milestones were also missed. As a result, the bank's board of directors canceled all bonuses to the executive suite for the past 2022, according to its annual compensation report.
Nevertheless, salaries for management did not fall as quickly as in 2021, because the fixed salary component was raised in total from 29.5 million to 32.2 million Swiss francs, corresponding to the total compensation for the past year. Ulrich Koerner received a total of 1.2 million francs for his four-month role as the bank's new CEO. With the salary from his previous role as head of the bank's fund unit, his annual salary rose to 2.5 million francs.
Who Made the Most?
The highest salary in management was earned by ex-chief financial officer David Mathers, who left last year, with 4.3 million francs. Koerner had taken over from hapless predecessor Thomas Gottstein last August. His salary for the first eight months, however, is no longer shown separately.
After the loss-making year 2021, the total compensation of the then-CEO Gottstein was nearly halved to 3.8 million francs. António Horta-Osório, who had to relinquish his chairmanship in January 2022 after breaches of Swiss Corona regulations, was rewarded with 3.5 million francs for his nine-month service.
The Credit Suisse board of directors under Chairman Axel Lehmann earned a total of 10.46 million francs. For Lehmann, the lucrative cash component «chair fee» was omitted, but still received a total of 3.19 million francs.
Gag Order Remains in Place
As widely reported in the media, the bank planned to cut the bonus pool by half this year, to around one billion francs. The outcome is one billion Swiss francs, which is 50 percent below 2021 and two-thirds below 2020.
«This pool level was set at the minimum level considered appropriate to enable the honoring of contractual commitments and payment of formulaic bonuses in the relevant areas, and to keep potential franchise damage through key employee attrition at a manageable level,» compensation committee chairman Christian Gellerstad wrote in a letter to shareholders.
Overall, total compensation for Credit Suisse employees was just two percent lower than the previous year at 9.4 billion francs.
The year before last also saw the introduction of a new bonus program for senior executives, which includes an increased cash component, but also a gag clause. 34 percent of the bonuses attributable to 2022 will now also only be paid out after three years, according to a statement on Tuesday.
