Corporate

Credit Suisse increased its bonus pool by 6%, defying a trend toward smaller payouts at many of its peers in an effort to prevent an exodus of talent from its investment banking and Asian operations. That followed a second straight year in the red for the bank amid a major restructuring and steep penalties for the sale of toxic mortgage debt in the run-up to the financial crisis.

CEO Tidjane Thiam’s pay for his first full year in the job swelled to 11.9 million Swiss francs ($12 million), the 2016 annual report of Switzerland’s second-biggest bank showed on Friday. This compared with the 4.57 million francs he earned in 2015 after joining the bank on June 22.

Last week a team of civil society organisations, included swiss Pro Specie Rara, Swissaid and Public Eye, started a public appeal to politicians and demand that effective prohibitions are put in place to stop the granting of patents on plants and animals derived from conventional breeding.

The protest is targeted at patents granted by the European Patent Office (EPO) in 2016 to the brewing companies Carlsberg and Heineken. The patents claim barley derived from conventional breeding, its usage in brewing beer and the beer produced thereof. However, the patents are simply based on random mutations in the plant’s genome.

The cost of making a car in the UK could increase by £2,370 ($2,930) in the event of a hard Brexit, according to research published by PA Consulting Group. The tariffs would apply to both imported and exported cars with the report stating carmakers would be likely to pass any price increases to buyers.

The report explained that the increased cost of manufacturing could be the case if the UK falls back on World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules post Brexit. It warned that the 10% WTO tariffs on exporting and importing with the European Union (EU), could force some manufacturers in the UK to relocate outside the country.

Apple has unveiled a new special-edition red iPhone 7, with a philanthropic decision, the Cupertino-based company added a red special edition to the lineup. The new red aluminum finish, which is available to order for both iPhone 7 and 7 Plus in-store and online on March 24, is a fundraising effort for the Global Fund.

The additional colour option is part of Apple’s Product Red campaign, a range of red products for which Apple makes a contribution from every purchase to the Global Fund for HIV and AIDS programmes. To date, Apple has generated over $130m through the project making it the organizations’s largest corporate donor, the company said.

UBS has repeatedly warned it will move staff to the Continent in the wake of the EU referendum. Chairman Axel Weber claimed 1,500 jobs would shift from London to preserve its business on mainland Europe and that the two-year negotiation process for Brexit “simply would not work” for its relocation strategy.
“We cannot postpone decisions on how we run our European operations,” Weber said at a conference in Frankfurt on Wednesday. “As soon as we know definitely that Brexit will happen, you will see decision-making processes kick off in all financial institutions.”

Swiss-based power and automation group ABB cut its 2016 profit report by $64 million after saying that internal controls failed to catch suspected fraud in South Korea.

It revised net income to $1.89 billion, ABB said in its annual report, down from $1.96 billion reported in February. The pre-tax impact was $73 million, less than the roughly $100 million previously reported, due to insurance recoveries.

UBS published its Annual Report 2016 providing detailed information, showing that it lowered the total pay for its chief executive Sergio Ermotti in 2016, a year in which the bank’s net profit was cut nearly in half compared with a year earlier.

Zurich-based UBS said on Friday that total compensation for CEO fell to 13.7 million Swiss francs ($13.5 million) in 2016 from 14.3 million francs a year earlier. Mr. Ermotti’s base salary remained unchanged at 2.5 million francs, according to a public filing, and he received a smaller bonus compared with 2015.
Overall, UBS decreased its 2016 bonus pool by 17% compared with the year before, to 2.9 billion francs.

Nestlé Austria has announced plans to close its production facility in Linz by March 2018, as part of an ‘ongoing evaluation’ of its portfolio.

The factory, which has been operating for nearly 140 years with an output of roughly 6,000 tonnes of food products, has been effected by changing consumer trends which have affected demand. The factory in Linz specialised in products for its business to business division.

On 7 March, the management informed the plant’s 127 employees of the decision, and is collaborating with the Works Council and employee representatives to find ‘socially acceptable solutions’.