Shareholders and employees watch Scotiabank CEO Brian Porter speak on a screen during the company's annual general meeting in Ottawa on Thursday, April 9, 2015.Cole Burston/The Canadian Press
Bank of Nova Scotia's chief executive officer received compensation totalling $9.3-million in 2015, up nearly 5 per cent from the previous year.
Brian Porter received a salary of $1-million, unchanged from 2014. However, the value of his stock options rose to $6.5-million, up from $5.5-million in 2014, offsetting a smaller bonus of $1.8-million.
"Under his leadership, the organization made significant progress in advancing our focus priorities: being more focused on our customers; enhancing our leadership depth, diversity and deployment; and better serving our customers while reducing structural costs," Scotiabank's human resources committee said in the bank's proxy circular.
Over past two years, Mr. Porter has remade most of his executive ranks, installing new heads of international banking, Canadian banking, wealth management and capital markets. He appointed new regional heads for Latin America and Mexico.
Mr. Porter has refined Scotiabank's international strategy, making efforts to focus on the four-nation trading bloc of the Pacific Alliance amid considerable turbulence among the broader emerging-markets space, which had been weighing on the bank's share in 2014 and 2015.
He has also put greater emphasis on credit cards, where Scotiabank had been lagging its peers.
Some of these efforts, which make the bank more vulnerable to economic downturns but potentially more profitable when times are good, have attracted the attention of credit rating agencies. Earlier this year, Moody's Investors Service downgraded the bank's long-term debt by one notch, putting it at the same level as Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of Montreal and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.
Sean McGuckin, Scotiabank's chief financial officer, received total compensation of $3-million in 2015, up 8 per cent from 2014.
Michael Durland, group head of global banking and markets before announcing his retirement in February, received $6.5-million, down 21 per cent from 2014 because of the lower performance of his division.
Dieter Jentsch, group head of international banking before being appointed to Mr. Durland's role in February, received nearly $4.3-million, up 31 per cent after his role was expanded to include international wealth management.
James O'Sullivan, the newly installed group head of Canadian banking, received $2.9-million, nearly double his compensation in 2014, following his promotion.
David Berman