OCBC's Samuel Tsien joins CEO S$10m-plus pay club

SAMUEL Tsien, OCBC Bank chief executive received S$10.5 million pay for 2015, up 6.1 per cent from S$9.9 million the year before, according to OCBC's 2015 annual report received on Monday.

With the higher pay Mr Tsien joins the very exclusive club of CEO pay here which is above S$10 million.

Mr Tsien's peers, DBS's Piyush Gupta and United Overseas Bank's Wee Ee Cheong, had entered the club with their 2014 pay. DBS and UOB will release their annual reports later this week.

Mr Gupta's 2014 pay was S$10.1 million while Mr Wee took home S$10.2 million.

The pay increase for Mr Tsien in 2015 came mainly from his higher bonus of S$5.5 million, up from S$5.1 million in 2014. His salary of S$1.2 million was unchanged.

The value of deferred share awards of S$2.8 million was also higher than the previous year's S$2.6 million. Mr Tsien was also granted options of 1,024,798 shares with the acquisition price of S$8.814. In 2014, his options were 744,867 shares at the acquisition price of S$10.378.

OCBC posted a 2015 net profit of S$3.9 billion, up 2 per cent.

The stock closed down eight Singapore cents to S$8.83 on Monday.