SINGAPORE (THE BUSINESS TIMES) - With DBS Group posting a record net profit for last year, the annual salary for its chief executive Piyush Gupta has gone up as well.
Mr Gupta’s annual remuneration jumped 47.8 per cent to $13.6 million last year, according to the bank’s annual report released on Wednesday (March 9).
His total compensation in 2020 was $9.2 million, a 24 per cent drop from the year before as the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic affected the bank’s earnings.
Mr Gupta’s pay last year consisted of a salary base of $1.2 million, a cash bonus of $5.2 million and shares worth $7.1 million. A non-cash component worth $75,462 was also part of his remuneration.
The shares amounting to $7.1 million do not include the estimated value of retention shares amounting to $1.4 million. These are used as a retention tool and to compensate staff for the time value of deferral, the report said. DBS employees do not receive ordinary dividends on unvested shares.
DBS’s financial year 2021 net profit jumped 44 per cent, hitting a record $6.8 billion. The 12.5 per cent return on equity was also the second-highest in more than 10 years.
South-east Asia’s largest lender said in its annual report that it managed to deliver “its best year ever in 2021” under the leadership of Mr Gupta.
“This achievement was all the more remarkable given ongoing challenges in the operating environment,” DBS said, citing issues such as rock-bottom interest rate levels and increased China idiosyncratic risks, following moves by its government to temper property market exuberance.
In the annual report, Mr Gupta spoke about how DBS needs to be more deeply embedded into the markets it already has a presence in, outside of Singapore and Hong Kong. This includes China, Taiwan, India and Indonesia.
Last year, the bank expanded its operations by acquiring Citigroup’s consumer banking business in Taiwan and bought a 13 per cent stake in Shenzhen Rural Commercial Bank to become its largest single shareholder.
These moves, along with the amalgamation of Lakshmi Vilas Bank in India at the end of 2020, would add between $1.2 billion and $1.3 billion to DBS’s revenue base and $500 million to its bottom line, said Mr Gupta.
In its sustainability report released on the same day, Mr Gupta said the bank has chosen to prioritise climate change concerns as the most immediate issue to tackle among a myriad of other environmental challenges and is weaving environmental, social and governance standards into its business.
DBS highlighted that it hit its target of growing sustainable investment to more than 50 per cent of its assets under management earlier than the set target date of 2024.
It also made its digital banking services more accessible to migrant workers, foreign domestic workers and seniors.
