Standard Chartered has awarded its new boss Bill Winters £6.7m in shares, the bulk of which is intended to compensate him for quitting the hedge fund he was previously running.
The former investment banker was hired by the troubled bank in February to turn it around after a damaging Iran sanction-busting scandal and a series of profit warnings. He took up the post in June, leaving the Renshaw Bay hedge fund he founded in London four years ago.
Standard Chartered announced on Wednesday that Winters had been awarded a one-off signing-on fee of £6.3m in shares as well as a fixed pay allowance worth £413,000 in shares this year. From 2016, he will receive about £800,000 a year under the share plan, which is designed to get around the EU’s cap on bankers’ bonuses. The shares will be released over five years.
Standard Chartered is paying Winters an annual salary of £1.15m along with benefits of £35,000, and another £460,000 a year into a pension. In addition, he participates in a long-term incentive plan linked to share performance and could receive share awards up to twice his salary each year.
Shares in the emerging markets bank rose strongly after Winters’ appointment, but have since fallen to 674.8p from more than £10 in early August.
The veteran global banker replaced longstanding boss Peter Sands and less than a month into the job reshuffled Standard Chartered’s management team. He halved the dividend at the half-year results in August, which showed a 44% drop in profits, and left the door open to a fundraising to rebuild the firm’s financial strength. He is due to announce a full strategic review this year.
Standard Chartered is under scrutiny from US regulators after a £400m fine in 2012 for breaching American sanctions against Iran, and, like other banks, faces separate investigations into foreign exchange rigging.
Winters rose to prominence a decade ago as joint head of investment banking at JPMorgan, based in London, having joined the Wall Street firm as a trainee in 1983. He left the bank in 2009 after a row with his boss Jamie Dimon. He had been seen as a possible successor to Dimon, who remains in the top job even after battling throat cancer last year.
Winters has also been involved in an overhaul of UK banking as a member of the independent commission set up in 2010. The commission, chaired by Sir John Vickers, recommended banks ringfence their high street operations from their investment banking arms, as well as holding more capital.
