Credit Suisse boss sees pay shrink

Swiss bank Credit Suisse cut its chief executive’s pay package by more than half last year, after net profit for 2011 shrank 62 per cent and its stock dropped 41 per cent.

CEO Brady Dougan earned SFr5.8 million ($6.3 million) last year, far less than his SFr12.8 million payday in 2010. The head of asset management, Robert Shafir, was the bank’s biggest earner with SFr8.5 million.

Dougan’s pay is still likely to spark investor ire, particularly in Switzerland, where calls for Credit Suisse to trim its costly investment bank have grown louder.

Altogether, top management at Credit Suisse pocketed SFr70.2 million, down from SFr160.3 million in 2010. Bank chairman Urs Rohner earned SFr4.3 million.

Dougan’s package is slightly less than that of UBS’s Sergio Ermotti, who earned nearly SFr6.4 million for 2011, including more than SFr4 million in various immediate and deferred cash and share-based bonuses.

Ermotti was named CEO of UBS in September, after former head Oswald Grübel quit following a $2 billion trading scandal.