Bonuses to Disappoint Bankers After Banner Year for Finance
Bloomberg
2/20/2021
Lananh Nguyen
(Bloomberg) -- After a stellar year for trading and dealmaking, European bankers are joining their American counterparts in learning their bonuses won’t be quite as impressive.
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Credit Suisse Group AG, which contended with major legal hits and writedowns last year, reduced its bonus pool by about 7%. Deutsche Bank AG will boost bonuses for its traders by more than 10%, but it was forced to scale back an initial plan to increase annual payments by roughly a third after the European Central Bank objected.
On both sides of the Atlantic, banks are seeking to exit bonus season with their top traders and investment bankers in place but without provoking the ire of regulators as a pandemic depresses the global economy. Banks have benefited from trading volatility and a surge in mergers and acquisitions, yet their consumer businesses have been hurt by worldwide lockdowns to combat Covid-19.