Lucerne - Former executives who oversaw massive losses at Swiss banking giant UBS will repay a further 22 million Swiss francs, chairperson Peter Kurer said.
The repayments by the unidentified individuals bring to nearly 70 million francs the amount of money handed back to the bank by former executives over the past year.
"I am continuing to hold talks concerning further repayments and waivers, and would greatly welcome it if it comes to that," Kurer told a special shareholders meeting on Thursday.
Kurer said he was treating the latest repayments as confidential.
He said UBS was way ahead of other major banks in retrieving performance pay from executives whose decisions turned out to have contributed to the bank's losses in the global financial meltdown. It also is taking a pioneering role in tying conditions to any future bonuses, he said.
While future bonuses are being slashed in many European banks, the return of executive compensation for past years at troubled financial institutions have been rare.
In November 2007 Leland Brendsel, former chief executive of the US mortgage giant Freddie Mac, agreed in a settlement with the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight after a 2003 accounting scandal to pay $2.5m in fines to the government, give back $10.5m in salary and bonuses to the company and waive claims against the company for compensation worth $3.4m.
Not waiting for the last minute
Pressure has been growing on former UBS executives to give back bonuses and other payments since the bank received a nearly $60bn state bailout package last month.
Shareholders at the meeting voted overwhelmingly to accept conditions contained in the bailout, including a capital increase and issuance of mandatory convertible notes worth 6 billion francs.
Kurer said UBS had sought government aid in a timely manner because board members had watched "too many institutions in other countries either having to be bailed out at the last minute or otherwise being left to their fate."
"Such a scenario needed to be avoided at all costs."
Former chief executive Peter Wuffli, who left the bank in July 2007, disclosed earlier this month that he had already forgone some payments he was due last year and that a further waiver this year brought to 12 million francs the sum he was renouncing.
Earlier this week three other people who were top executives when the bank made bad investments in the US subprime mortgage market said they were forfeiting 33 million francs in salary and other payments.
Ex-chairperson Marcel Ospel, who was in charge as the bank ran up more than $40bn in writedowns and losses over the past year, said he was forfeiting more than 22 million francs.
No profits, no bonus
Two other members of the governing troika, ex-vice president Stephan Haeringer and former chief financial officer Marco Suter, said they too were taking part in renouncing the funds.
Kurer said the UBS board of directors had set up a small committee to examine the possibility of legal action against former executives who were responsible for UBS' subprime fiasco, but that preliminary work indicated no basis for a suit.
He said the committee consists of people who were elected to the board no earlier than 2007, meaning they joined after the decisions that laid the basis for UBS' current problems.
Last week UBS said it will stop making bonus payments to its chairman starting next year. Kurer, who has already said he will forego any bonus for 2007 and 2008 until the bank has recovered, will receive a fixed salary starting in 2009, the bank said.
The bank will also introduce what it calls a "bonus-malus" system for its other 12 board members. No bonus will be awarded in years when UBS makes a loss, and the cash balance will be reduced by a "malus," the opposite of a bonus.
Board members' bonuses will be held back for a certain period to discourage risky short-term investments, the bank said, adding that it would also apply the system to other senior managers in charge of high-risk parts of its business.
Kurer told shareholders the bank admitted it had made mistakes in the past and it was striving to restore confidence.
The bank said earlier this month that private and institutional investors withdrew about 84 billion francs during the third quarter.
"Everything we have done until now to manage the financial market crisis has been done with the aim of allaying even the slightest doubt about the security of the money deposited with us," he said. "Your assets are secure!"
UBS shares closed up 4.05% on Thursday at 15.40 francs on the Zurich exchange.
- AP