The UBS bonus question
Rumours are flying thick and fast about the likely structure of bonuses at UBS this year.
UBS has already officially indicated that it will be paying a higher proportion of bonuses in stock after reporting its first quarterly loss for half a decade and predicting a full year loss for its securities unit.
More colour is emerging on what this 'higher proportion of stock' might look like. According to one headhunter, the bank has indicated that it will pay 75% of bonuses above US$500k in stock and 100% of anything above $2m in stock. She says UBS is compensating for this by offering stock recipients a shorter vesting schedule.
Both claims are unconfirmed by the bank itself.
Even worse: deferred cash?
Another rumour is that UBS plans to defer paying part of the remaining cash element of its bonuses until 2008. This has been categorically denied by the bank, but one headhunter says it would make sense - both for UBS and elsewhere.
"It is very possible that those banks hardest hit by credit losses will find it necessary to pay greater proportions of bonus awards in stock this year, and probably even defer the cash elements of the bonus over the next 12 months," he says.
It won't be the first time that banks have withheld cash payouts. ABN operates (or operated before it jumped into bed with RBS and some Spaniards) a deferred cash scheme. Dresdner K famously deferred a proportion of its traders' cash bonuses in 2006 on the condition that they met additional performance targets. Guess what? Several traders left as a result.
