DBS CEO Piyush Gupta sells another $12.6 million worth of shares ahead of planned retirement

SINGAPORE: DBS Group CEO Piyush Gupta recently sold 300,000 DBS shares, valued at approximately $12.6 million, amid plans for his upcoming retirement from Southeast Asia’s largest bank.

The share sale was documented in a filing with the Singapore Exchange, revealing the transactions were completed on Nov 7 and 8.

On Nov 7, Mr Gupta sold 100,000 shares at $41.7513 each. The following day, he sold an additional 200,000 shares at a slightly higher rate of $42.2023 per share.

The sale reduced Mr Gupta’s stake in DBS from 0.07% to 0.077%, leaving him with around 1.9 million shares, down from 2.2 million.

Interestingly, the profits from the sale of the shares this month exceed the $11.2 million pay he was slated to receive in 2023 – a pay package slashed by 27 per cent due to a string of service outages involving the banking giant.

This is not the first time Mr Gupta has made a substantial sum cashing out his DBS shares this year.

The November transactions follow Mr Gupta’s sale spree of DBS shares between May 3 and May 16, in which he sold more than 500,000 shares through a series of transactions at prices ranging from $35.40 to $35.90 per share.

In total, he sold over 500,000 shares of DBS in May alone, with the lucrative transactions earning him more than $17.8 million.

Gupta, who has led DBS for 15 years, first indicated his intention to retire by age 65 in 2021.  In August, he formally announced that he would step down during the bank’s annual general meeting on March 28, 2025.

Tan Su Shan, DBS’s current deputy CEO, is set to succeed him, marking a new leadership phase for the bank.