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Naomi Rovnick

UBS has lost a huge chunk of one of its most successful Hong Kong investment banking teams after paying bonuses in Asia that were in many cases 95 per cent below the performance pay cheques staff received a year ago.
The co-heads of the bank's equity derivatives practice, Min Park and Kenneth Pang, resigned last Friday with 10 of their staff. 
The entire team is understood to be joining rival Credit Suisse, although neither Swiss bank would confirm this.  
 Mr Park and Mr Pang, who were both managing directors at UBS,  refused to comment. Sources  said the pair could get sued by UBS if they talked publicly about their move.
Sources said the two bankers were likely to have been guaranteed multimillion-dollar bonuses for this year by Credit Suisse. They are thought to have left UBS after being dissatisfied with their payouts for last year.
Across Asia, insiders and headhunters said most UBS bankers received a bonus for 2008 of just 5 per cent of the 2007 amount.  'That figure is about right, though some performers got more and some non-performers got less,' a  source confirmed.
A senior UBS banker based  in Asia said he and some of his team were also keen to leave the loss-making Swiss institution as their shrivelled bonus cheques had made them feel angry and undervalued.
'The situation here is very unhappy,' the banker said.  
Separately, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank are thought to be eyeing UBS' prized mainland joint venture UBS Securities to see if any of its  capital markets bankers are willing to jump ship.
UBS was a big  victim of the credit crisis, suffering a US$17 billion loss last year,  the largest in Swiss corporate history. Credit Suisse made a comparatively smaller US$7 billion loss.  
Since the onset of the crunch, UBS has axed more than 8,000 jobs, including a few hundred in Hong Kong.
In October last year, it received a US$60 billion bailout package from the Swiss government. In common with many other banks taking state aid, UBS greatly reduced staff bonuses to placate taxpayers and politicians. 
Worldwide, UBS paid less than 2 billion Swiss francs (HK$13.38 billion) in bonuses for last year against 9.5 billion francs for 2007.
Equity derivatives are complex financial instruments that hedge funds and large financial institutions use to bet on the future performance of share prices.
Under Mr Park and Mr Pang, UBS topped trade magazine Asiamoney's annual structured products poll every year from 2004 to 2008. 
Last year, Credit Suisse came second in the rankings.
Shrinking pay
Most UBS bankers saw a reduction in last year's bonus from 2007's figure of: 95%



Bonus cut likely  reason for UBS  bankers leaving