ZURICH (Reuters) – Institutional Shareholder Services has urged Julius Baer shareholders to reject the remuneration package of the Swiss private bank’s board of directors over a proposed doubling of the chair’s pay to 2 million Swiss francs ($2.26 million).
The bank has not provided a convincing justification for raising the board’s pay by 19.2% to 4.4 million Swiss francs ($4.98 million) for the coming year, the proxy advisory firm known as ISS said in a note seen by Reuters on Tuesday.
ISS said it objected to the compensation for the board, which is due to be reduced to eight from nine members, being increased in order give the chairman more.
Julius Baer declined to comment.
The bank has proposed Noel Quinn, former CEO of HSBC, for election as Julius Baer’s next chairman at the annual general meeting on April 10.
He is to succeed Romeo Lacher, who said in January he would step down as the bank looks to start afresh in the wake of major losses from its exposure to collapsed property group Signa.
($1 = 0.8833 Swiss francs)
(Reporting by Oliver Hirt, writing by Ariane Luthi; Editing by Dave Graham)
