Executive pay rises despite law change

The day after it announced 2,000 more job cuts, Credit Suisse revealed that it paid its newest chief executive, Tidjane Thiam, some CHF4.6 million ($4.7 million) for six months of work last year. Three years on from the Minder initiative, its author still isn't happy with executive pay. Switzerland’s second largest bank also said on Thursday that it had awarded Thiam, an Ivorian businessman and former politician who became the bank’s CEO in June 2015, some CHF14.3 million in shares to compensate for the earnings that he would have received if he had stayed on at Prudential, where he had been the chief executive since 2009. Based on past remarks, many commentators likely would argue that it is unfair to single out Thiam. He did, after all, voluntarily give up 40% of his bonus as the Zurich-based bank made losses. Moreover, his crosstown rival, Sergio Ermotti, CEO of Switzerland’s biggest bank, UBS, saw his pay rise 28%, up to CHF14.3 million, for a full year’s work – ...