"I can assure you that SEB’s management and board of directors view the issue of incentive compensation with utmost importance and that we take the local Swedish as well as the international debate under consideration," writes Marcus Wallenberg, chairman of SEB’s Board of directors in a comment submitted Thursday to the Swedish daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.
– SEB is currently in the middle of an intense period to finalise the bank’s annual accounts for 2009, which will be presented on 10 February. Therefore no decisions concerning 2009 have been taken.
– I was greatly surprised when I read in Svenska Dagbladet on 13 January that the bank’s incentive compensation would be at a certain level and that we had decided not to pay any dividend to shareholders. The Board has discussed neither dividends nor incentive compensation yet. It is the bank’s shareholders that will make a decision about the dividend at the annual general meeting, based on a suggestion from the Board of directors to be presented on 10 February.
MARCUS WALLENBERG