Executive salaries in Switzerland continue to rise despite the deteriorating conditions in the global economy. While increasing instability in global markets and the onset of a recession in Europe are expected to have an impact on Switzerland at some point, the impact is as yet to be felt.

A study just published by Ethos Foundation inventories top executive salaries in Switzerland –including the highest CEO salary packages – of the top 48 companies in the SMI and SMIM indexes. Ethos represents 75 Swiss pension funds.

The average CEO salary is $10,000,000 (the exact reported average: CHF 10,7 million).

The #1 spot goes to Daniel Vasella or Novartis, with a total salary or CHF 30 million, followed by Brady Dougan of Credit Suisse with CHF 22.3 million, Franz Humer of Roche (CHF 21.6 million), Peter Brabeck of Nestle (CHF 18.7 million), and Jacques Algrain of Swiss Re (CHF 15.1 million).

Some less well-known names have emerged in the new ranking, such as Walter Kielholz, president at Credit-Suisse (CHF 14.6 million), and Pierre Cuoni, and executive at EFG International (CHF 10.5 million),

The level of transparency in Swiss corporate remuneration has improved considerably with the changes last year in the legal code, particularly articles 633b and 633c. So that while the area of salary payment has been rendered public, there remain however many opaque areas around bonus payments, options and stock options, the real versus declared value of aforementioned in the corporate accounting systems. In sum, there remain sizable barriers to an accurate picture of real executive remuneration in Switzerland, since important portions of it can be hidden from view. Whatever its true magnitude, to judge simply from salary payments, it is rising much faster than salaries in the rest of the economy.

Ethos recently sponsored a new resolution – and which is backed by major pension funds such as the Canton of Geneva, Pictet Funds, ABB, Credit Suisse, and Novartis— to be treated at the next corporate general assemblies in 2009 which calls for a modification to the statutes to permit stockholders to vote on the remuneration of company’s corporate leadership.

Over the past five years, salaries for top executives in Switzerland have roughly doubled.

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