Bonus Watch '12: UBS Suggests Senior Staff Get Comfortable
Earlier today, as in a few minutes ago, we learned that UBS announced it would claw back 2010 bonuses for senior-ranking employees in the investment bank. This may have put a damper on some people's commute home but in happier news? Those individuals will be getting paid for last year's work (albeit at a slightly reduced rate) and the only strings attached are that they can never leave UBS.
Actually, they can leave in three years but, true or false, the idea of spending three more years there is probably sounding like an eternity right about now?
UBS said the so-called “special plan” awards, which were disclosed in Tuesday’s annual results and will be awarded this year, will have strict forfeiture conditions attached. Only about 5 per cent of UBS’s 17,000 investment bankers will be eligible and executives will have to remain with the Swiss group for three years before they can cash in the bonuses, according to people familiar with the plan. On average, each recipient would receive around SFr350,000 in deferred shares, although awards will vary significantly. UBS wants to minimise potential departures from its senior ranks after slashing the investment banking division’s bonus pool by 60 per cent in 2011, in recognition of both weaker revenues and the $2.3bn in unauthorised losses allegedly racked up by a London-based trader last summer.
