Roche’s Severin Schwan Still Best-Paid Swiss CEO, Ethos Says

Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) — With 13.4 million francs ($14 million) total compensation last year, Severin Schwan, chief executive officer of Roche Holding AG, is still the best-paid Swiss executive, closely followed by Joseph Jimenez, CEO at rival Novartis AG, according to a study by corporate governance group Ethos.

“Double-digit sums are difficult to accept in a Swiss environment,” Dominique Biedermann, director of Ethos, told reporters at the briefing. “The Swiss people have voted and said such compensation doesn’t go anymore.”

Last year Swiss voters passed a referendum to implement “fat-cat” rules, giving investors a greater say on executive salaries. Ethos said today that the initiative, which was proposed by Thomas Minder to eliminate sign-on bonuses, severance packages, and extra incentives for merger transactions, has had some impact, causing companies to become more transparent regarding remuneration.

Executive pay of the 100 biggest listed companies in Switzerland rose 2 percent last year, mainly driven by the financial sector which was up 8 percent, Ethos said during a presentation in Zurich today. Executive pay in other sectors declined 1 percent.

“The average pay has remained fairly stable,” according to Vincent Kaufmann, who will take over as head of Ethos from Biedermann next year. Ethos advises more than 140 Swiss pension funds and charitable trusts.

To contact the reporter on this story: Carolyn Bandel in Zurich at [e-mail] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Mark Bentley at [e-mail] Zoe Schneeweiss, Thomas Mulier