UBS, the biggest European casualty of the US subprime crisis, confirmed on Tuesday that its struggle with securitised residential mortgages had affected the very top of the company.

Marcel Ospel, UBS’s veteran chairman and the focus of many shareholders’ ire, saw his 2007 remuneration shrink to SFr2.57m ($2.58m), less than a 10th of the SFr26.6m he received in 2006, based on figures in the group’s annual report.