Piazza Affari is full of buys on the UniCredit share, and for different reasons: meanwhile, today, 27 February 2023, the share from Piazza Gae Aulenti made its official entry into the EURO STOXX 50, replacing the German industrial gas giant number one in the world, Linde. The reason lies in the delisting of the Linde stock from the Frankfurt stock exchange, after the group’s shareholders decided to have the shares traded only on the Nyse, on Wall Street.
There is no shortage of other news relating to the Italian bank: the day before yesterday, Il Sole 24 Ore reported the rumors according to which UniCredit is considering the option of increasing the salary of its CEO Andrea Orcel by a percentage between 20% and 40% . This means that the CEO’s salary will rise from the current 7.5 million to between 9 and 10.5 million euros. The Confindustria newspaper specified, according to what emerged from some sources, that a decision on Orcel’s compensation has not yet been taken by the shareholders, who the bank itself is consulting.
Orcel’s pay rumors have had consequences for UniCredit. It must be said that already in April 2021, when Andrea Orcel took over the reins of UniCredit in place of the former CEO Jean Pierre Mustier, the revolt of the bank’s shareholders, who had rebelled against a compensation, in favor of the current CEO, double that received by his predecessor. Last year, at the end of March, Glass Lewis – the investor advisory firm – had once again expressed concerns about the salary of the UniCredit CEO by recommending shareholders for the second consecutive year to vote against his salary.
And so the FT, in April 2021, commented on the beginning of the UniCredit era under Andrea Orcel:
The salary is “definitely higher than that of Mustier, who resigned in February and who, when he took office in the bank in 2016, cut his fixed salary by 40% to 1.2 million euros and who also last year he reduced his pay by a quarter, in response to the pandemic (Covid), by giving up a 2.4 million euro bonus”. To the point that “Mustier’s total compensation in 2020 was 911,000 euros”, recalled the British newspaper.
READ ALSO
UniCredit: Orcel’s shareholder blessing is on its way, the FT advises him to treasure the Mustier case. Among the challenges maxi salary and grain Mps
Orcel’s fee was also targeted by proxy advisor Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) who, unlike Glass Lewis, did not ask investors to vote against the bank’s compensation policy. It must be said, to clarify the situation that, as reported by an article by the Reuters news agency, that the UCG stock has more than doubled its value since the arrival of Andrea Orcel.
At the top of Piazza Gae Aulenti, in any case, the tip on the possibility of further increasing the salary of the CEO is certainly not appreciated. So much so that today came the news reported by the Financial Times, and relating to the resignation of Jayne-Anna Gadhia.
Gadhia would have resigned from the board of UniCredit after being accused of having been the source who provided confidential information just a few days after the decision of the UniCredit board of directors regarding Orcel’s salary. Some sources told the FT that Gadhia, on the board of UniCredit since 2021, who had held the position of head of UniCredit’s Remuneration Commission, has decided to tender her resignation after an internal investigation which saw her accused of have disclosed the information. Two sources specified that the charges against her were eventually dropped but that the executive decided to resign in any case “as a matter of principle”, continuing to hold the position of senior consultant.
READ ALSO
UniCredit, Mps, Intesa & Co: outlook, rating e tp
UniCredit and other Bigs: profits boom in 2022 with the ECB
The UniCredit shareholders’ meeting will be held on March 31st. In today’s session, the UniCredit stock occupies first place in the ranking of the best stocks of the Ftse Mib, with a jump up to over 5%