Reply #40: Wall Street Chiefs Cruising on Pay Gravy Train

[54anickel]

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&refer=columnist_crystal&sid=aerZQJF48urM

March 14 (Bloomberg) -- Maybe you know the old Wall Street maxim: The greater the risk, the greater the reward.

Too bad it only applies to shareholders of the five-biggest publicly traded Wall Street firms, not to the chief executive officers. While investors have ridden the ups and downs of earnings and share prices, these CEOs have rolled along on the pay gravy train.

Let's start with the 2005 total pay of the current CEOs of the five firms:


Company - CEO - (millions)
Bear Stearns - James Cayne - $30.6
Goldman Sachs - Henry Paulson - $41.3
Lehman Brothers - Richard Fuld - $40.6
Merrill Lynch - Stanley O'Neal - $35.5
Morgan Stanley - John Mack - $38.6

Low $30.6
Median $38.6
Average $37.3
High $41.3

(Total pay consists of the sum of: 1)base salary; 2)bonus for annual performance; 3)my estimate for the present value at grant of stock options granted during the year, using the Black- Scholes model; 4)free share grants made during the year; 5)payouts during the year under other forms of long-term incentive compensation; and 6)miscellaneous compensation.)

When I first started writing a column for Bloomberg News in 2000, I reported on the 1999 pay of 439 CEOs of large market-cap companies. So let's put those pay figures alongside the 2005 pay figures just cited. (Not all the current CEOs were in their jobs in 1999.)

more...