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Just 9 months after taking office (1 April 2023), the Swiss banking giant Ub made its CEO, Sergio Ermotti, the highest paid in Europe.
Last year, in fact, in a span of just three quarters, the manager earned 14.4 million francs (equal to approximately 14.7 million euros). The compensation is calculated, in fact, over nine months, having taken over the leadership of the Swiss bank on April 1st, to lead the integration of Credit Suisse. His predecessor Ralph Hamers had earned 12.6 million Swiss francs as CEO of the big bank in 2022.
According to the institute’s annual report, of Ermotti’s 14.4 million, 2.1 million constitute the fixed salary and 12.3 million the variable part of the salary as a performance award. A figure almost equal to the compensation received by the entire Board of Directors, to which the Swiss bank paid, including subsidiary emoluments, 15.2 million francs, an amount significantly higher than the 12.6 million in 2022.
Although light years away from the stratospheric figures of American bankers, Ermotti’s emolument marks the distance with the salaries – albeit very respectable – of Italian bankers. During 2023, the CEO of Intesa Sanpaolo, Carlo Messina, received compensation equal to just over 4 million euros between fixed component (2.6 million euros, unchanged since 2016 and which will remain so this year too) and 1.4 million euros as the sum of the annual premiums from previous years. To this compensation, however, must be added the share component received, equal to 1.6 million euros, from previous incentive programs. Therefore, considering all the items, 5.7 million went to Messina.
Even Unicredit, a few days ago, announced that its CEO, Andrea Orcel, had achieved all the objectives that the shareholders had asked of him in 2023. For this, he will receive a compensation of 9.75 million euros this year compared to the previous 7.5 million. Followed at a distance by the number one of Banco Bpm, Giuseppe Castagna, whose total compensation, in 2023, should be around 3 million, and Piero Luigi Montani, CEO of Bper Banca, who, in 2022, appears to have obtained a compensation of 1.15 million.