| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front Economy |
| Wall Street Execs Made $3 Billion Before Crisis; How to Make $300,000 Per Day for Fun and Profit |
| 2008-09-27 |
| Sept. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Wall Street's five biggest firms paid more than $3 billion in the last five years to their top executives, while they presided over the packaging and sale of loans that helped bring down the investment-banking system. Merrill Lynch & Co. paid its chief executives the most, with Stanley O'Neal taking in $172 million from 2003 to 2007 and John Thain getting $86 million, including a signing bonus, after beginning work in December. The company agreed to be acquired by Bank of America Corp. for about $50 billion on Sept. 15. Bear Stearns Cos.'s James ``Jimmy'' Cayne made $161 million before the company collapsed and was sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co. in June. Democrats and Republicans in Congress are demanding that limits be placed on executive pay as part of the $700 billion financial rescue plan proposed by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO, who received about $111 million between 2003 and 2006, said in testimony to Congress on Sept. 24 that he would accept such limits as part of the plan, after initially opposing them. The $3.1 billion paid to the top five executives at the firms between 2003 and 2007 was about three times what JPMorgan spent to buy Bear Stearns. Goldman Sachs had the highest total, with $859 million, followed by Bear Stearns at $609 million. CEO pay at the five firms increased each year, doubling to $253 million in 2007, according to data compiled from company filings. Executive-compensation figures include salary, bonuses, stock and stock options, some awarded for past performance. The options were valued at a third of the fair-market price of the stock at the time the options were granted, a method recommended by Graef Crystal, a compensation specialist and author of the Crystal Report on Executive Compensation, an online newsletter. The companies value the options using different methods. Some of these CEOs presided over the collapse of their companies and then received millions in compensation for separation packages when they left their failed companies. It is unfathomable that anyone is worth as much as some of these MBA-educated company looters. What the heck were the Boards of Directors doing? Where were the stockholders and bond holders of these companies? No wonder the FBI is investigating some of these companies. It remains to be seen whether anything comes of such investigations. What ever happened to “pay for performance?” Where can I sign on as the CEO for a company and then get compensated millions when I leave? I assure you, I will leave for a lot less than any of these guys did. Does anyone know the politics of some of the CEOs mentioned in this article and what their linkages might have been to such entities as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and such luminaries as Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and others related to the subprime mortgage mess? |
| Posted by:JohnQC |
| #7 Seems like stockholders should have more say on executive compensation to me. $172 million is a lot of money, even for the big banks. That should have been voted on, or the board should have been voted out, either way it looks like a couple hundred people walked away with a whole country's banking system's money. And they wont do a damned thing to them. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-09-27 22:50 |
| #6 Maybe Thomas Sowell. Maybe my wife. She keeps the household finances in pretty good order. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2008-09-27 20:32 |
| #5 Matt, you're cruel. You know Professor Walter E. Williams is the only one who could explain it... possibly the good doctor Isaac Asimov, but he's been dead for awhile. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-09-27 18:18 |
| #4 ed, LMAO. The BOD's of these companies generally consist of extremely well-educated and successful people. That sounds like a fine idea, but my theory is that it leads to groupthink of the worst sort. After all, if you've got a PhD from Hahvard, you really don't want to raise your hand and let the other Hahvard PhD's know that you don't understand management's latest hare-brained scheme. So my corrective proposal would be (a) to require that the board of every publicly traded company include at least one plumber, welder, electrician's helper or other person with demonstrable common sense and (b) that no action could be taken by the board unless and until the action had been explained to that guy in such a way that he could pass a multiple choice test on it. CEO: "And so, management is proposing that the company commit $850 million dollars to the second tranche of Lehman's new debt offering, the security for which will consist of 150 popsicle sticks that have been determined by application of a Monte Carlo Simulation and the Black Scholes Option Pricing Model to have a value of eleventy jillion dollars. Any questions?" Plumber: "Yeah, I got a question. Are you guys out of your friggin' minds?" |
| Posted by: Matt 2008-09-27 18:05 |
| #3 They should have hired me. I would have tanked their companies for $2 Billion. |
| Posted by: Spaish Flomble3461 2008-09-27 16:59 |
| #2 I believe the solution to America's predicament lies in Wall Street's most successful business strategy to date. Yes, I'm talking about outsourcing. Why pay traders $5 Mil/year (and the bosses $50 Mil/year) when a Chinese worker would jump at the chance to do the work for $5000/year. And work harder and longer in the process. Besides, that's where all the US dollars are anyway. What Indian Dell tech support worker isn't silently screaming to let out his/her inner bond trader? Because these new investment bankers work for less money, previously untapped markets (because they were not worth the time for a $2500/hour worker Goldman-Sachs bees), can be exploited for all they're worth. The NKor kimchee market or rat meat futures have hardly begun to be exploited. Multi thousand dollar loans on Communist era apartments or grass thatched bungalows are the new El Dorado for mortgage bankers. Our new small market outsourced workers will lose a lot less money and make a profit doing it. Of course we can't just allow these neophyte Masters of the Universe to trade without training. Therefore H1-B visas must to expanded to bring in these workers and get them trained. The few remaining traders who still have their jobs will be required to train their replacements before being riffed. But to give the trainers an incentive, a $5000 bonus will be given upon success training of their replacements. What the hell, make it $10,000. I'm feeling generous. A decade or two of this outsourcing and America will be able to afford to splurge at Mickey D's once again. Of course there will some losers. For instance Manhattan cocaine dealers and high dollar strippers. But you can't make an omelet without breaking a $100 into a pile of ones. |
| Posted by: ed 2008-09-27 16:23 |
| #1 the execs are paid this money to keep their mouths shut. Ultimately the BOD is responsible for the actions of the CEO and they can be sued by the stockholders. |
| Posted by: bman 2008-09-27 15:11 |