42 Employee stock-ownership plan

The stock-ownership plan enables employees to subscribe annually to a defined number of bearer shares of VP Bank Ltd, Vaduz, at a preferential price subject to a three-year restriction on selling these shares. Upon expiration of the sales restriction period, or at the time of resignation from VP Bank Group, the related shares become freely available. As the employees are therefore ultimately able to take up the shares at any time and in full, the expense arising from the employee stock-ownership plans is recorded in full at the time of their respective allocation. Half of the number of registered shares A to be subscribed is based on length of service and is proportional to the amount of the annual fixed salary, whereby fixed salary components in excess of CHF 120,000 and variable salary components are not taken into account. The purchase price is determined annually in relation to the market value of the bearer shares on SIX Swiss Exchange (ex-dividend). The shares issued in this manner derive either from share holdings of VP Bank Group or must be purchased for this purpose over the exchange. The expense thereby incurred is charged directly to personnel costs. A total of 22,381 shares (previous year: 21,169 shares) were subscribed at a preferential price in 2025. Share issue expenses in 2025 were CHF 0.9 million (previous year: CHF 1.0 million). There is no stock-ownership plan for the Board of Directors. Its members, however, receive a part of their compensation in the form of equity shares which are not subject to any lock-up period (Note 39). A management stock-ownership plan exists for Group Executive Management and other key managers (Note 43). VP Bank Ltd has defined lock-up periods for the Board of Directors, Group Executive Management and selected key managers and employees, during which it is prohibited to trade in the shares of VP Bank.