The former CEO of Raiffeisen, Pierin Vincenz, reportedly reached a backdoor deal to discreetly augment his salary during the financial crisis. The timing coincides with the Swiss banker's rhetoric against high pay at UBS and Credit Suisse.
Pierin Vincenz, who ran Raiffeisen until 2016, was paid 13.8 million Swiss francs ($15 million) in 2008 under a pay deal which wasn't made transparent to the Swiss cooperative bank's members, according to Swiss weekly «NZZ am Sonntag» (behind paywall, in German).
The sum itself isn't unusual for Switzerland, where CEOs such as UBS' Sergio Ermotti regulary ranked as Europe's best-paid banker and ex-Credit Suisse CEO Brady Dougan in 2010 pulled down 90 million francs from two different payment plans. Vincenz's pay (graph from NZZ below) stands out because the now-65-year-old Swiss banker was launching hefty verbal rhetoric against pay practices at major banks.
The covertness of the deal also doesn't sit well, especially at a cooperatively-organized bank ostensibly rooted in small-town values. Raiffeisen in 2009 began publicly reporting CEO pay.
(graph, image, and montage: NZZ am Sonntag)
Vincenz is is due to stand trial on charges including misappropriation on a series of deals while running Raiffeisen. The bank efforts to rehabilitate itself from the scandal were dealt a setback in July when Chairman Guy Lachappelle resigned suddenly after admitting he had passed on confidential information from his former employer, also a Swiss bank, to a woman with whom he had been romantically involved.
According to the report, Vincenz's pay was routed through an outside lawyer, who isn't named. Raiffeisen's chairman at the time Johannes Rueegg-Stuerm stepped down in 2018 after Vincenz was arrested and, earlier this year, resigned from a tenured position at St. Gallen's prestigious university.
