{"id":89196,"date":"2026-06-21T19:29:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T19:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/89196\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T19:29:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T19:29:24","slug":"ethos-rejects-novartis-ceo-management-pay-as-excessive-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/89196\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethos rejects Novartis CEO, management pay as excessive"},"content":{"rendered":"

ZURICH, Feb 24 (Reuters) – Proxy advisory firm Ethos on Tuesday urged shareholders of Novartis (NOVN.S), opens new tab<\/a> to reject pay-related items at the pharma company’s upcoming annual general meeting, calling the 2025 remuneration for CEO Vasant Narasimhan “particularly excessive”.Narasimhan received a 24.9 million Swiss franc<\/a> ($32.12 million) compensation package for 2025, up 30% from the previous year, driven by a three-year share price increase of 64%.<\/p>\n

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Ethos said although Novartis performed well financially in 2025, with profits up 17%, such compensation went too far, noting the CEO’s variable remuneration for 2025 was worth 22.3 million francs, or 11.8 times his base salary.<\/p>\n

Novartis said that its compensation framework is directly linked to the company’s short and long-term performance and the shareholder value that is created.<\/p>\n

Ethos calculated that among CEOs of the ten largest companies on the Swiss stock exchange, Narasimhan’s pay is more than 50% above the median. The gap widens to 80% when compared with the 15 largest European healthcare firms.<\/p>\n

“We regret that Novartis has chosen to compare itself mainly with North American companies when setting the remuneration of its executives,” said Vincent Kaufmann, CEO of Ethos.<\/p>\n

Kaufmann said while it is understandable that a company the size of the Basel-based Novartis may pay relatively high salaries in order to retain top talent, he argued the levels reached in recent years were excessive and hard to justify.<\/p>\n

Ethos also recommended voting against the remuneration requested for the members of the executive management for 2027 and for the board of directors at the AGM on March 6.<\/p>\n

The remuneration for the board of directors is significantly higher than that for the boards of the ten largest Swiss companies by market capitalisation, Ethos said.<\/p>\n

($1 = 0.7753 Swiss francs)<\/p>\n

Writing by Dave Graham, Editing by Louise Heavens<\/p>\n

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n

Purchase Licensing Rights<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ZURICH, Feb 24 (Reuters) – Proxy advisory firm Ethos on Tuesday urged shareholders of Novartis (NOVN.S), opens new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[127],"tags":[18218,15510,4967,15523,15524,15513,26140,26137,26141,29176,10890,26138,26143,31486,31477,45177,45178,45176,45175,45174,15528,10889,10895,10886,26142,10891,2082,10873,15525,26132,15515,32928,1245,45166,45167,45168,15516,45169,10867,18219,206,45170,45172,45164,45173,45171,15517,15518,15519,15521,18228,31484,15509,45165,15527,18230,18224,15526,714,10872],"class_list":["post-89196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-novartis","tag-amers","tag-bact","tag-biz","tag-ceeu","tag-ch","tag-cmpny","tag-destabn","tag-destabx","tag-destbnx","tag-destd","tag-destdnp","tag-deste","tag-destfun","tag-destlita","tag-destm","tag-destocog","tag-destocor","tag-destoebec","tag-destoemp","tag-destohlt","tag-destoukbsm","tag-destpsc","tag-destrbn","tag-destrnp","tag-destu","tag-destucdptest","tag-emea","tag-europ","tag-fin","tag-fins","tag-heca","tag-insr","tag-legal","tag-lifins","tag-lins","tag-meet1","tag-mngiss","tag-mpay","tag-mtpix","tag-namer","tag-novartis","tag-nrlinocor","tag-nrlpaocog","tag-nrlpaoebec","tag-nrlpaoemp","tag-nrlpaohlt","tag-phar","tag-phar1","tag-phmr","tag-publ","tag-pxp","tag-reuters-legal","tag-rhpicorporate-structure","tag-rsbicompensation","tag-sustainable-business","tag-topcmb","tag-topicpharma-healthcare-business-health","tag-topnws","tag-us","tag-weu"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}