One of the more gratifying moments so far this year – at least in the realm of high finance – was the decision last week by shareholders of Citigroup to reject a $15 million pay package for CEO Vikram Pandit. The shareholders vetoed the award since they believed there was too big a disconnect between Pandit’s pay and performance. As my colleague Christopher Matthews pointed out, Citi shares have plunged 80% under Pandit’s leadership. In 2011, Citi’s stock sunk 20% while the S&P 500 index jumped 6%. Now does that sound like a track record worthy of $15 million? The rebuke, though, is much more than comeuppance for another entitled CEO – more even than a blow to rampant corporate greed and excess in America. The revolt at Citi is a victory for capitalism, and a signal that, hopefully, more capitalism is on the way.
After a dreadful 2011 that saw Wall Street profits plunge, many financial industry workers feared that bonuses, which typically make up a large chunk of their compensation, would fall off a cliff. But according to a new report by New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, the total amount Wall Street firms paid in bonuses only [...]
Former Pay Czar Kenneth Feinberg is among the people who have tried to rein in Wall Street pay (Jason Reed/REUTERS) When it comes to bonuses, Wall Street is stuck in the hot tub time machine. Apparently, it takes more than the fall of two storied investment firms, a financial crisis, a bailout, Andrew Cuomo, a [...]
The market is down again today and one of the reasons people have cited for the recent 800 point drop in the Dow is that investors are worried about the bank regulations coming out of the Obama administration. The first part of the argument is that Obama’s plan to tax the banks and limit what they [...]
Goldman Sachs, in response to the continuing bad press it’s been getting for planning to shower its employees with money, announced today that bonuses for its top 30 managers will be paid out entirely in stock. Yawn. Bonuses for top management at Goldman were already paid out mostly in stock. Goldman already used clawbacks to [...]
I’m sure somebody will eventually be able to convince me that this is a bad idea, but my initial reaction to UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling’s temporary 50% bank bonus tax is why the heck not? No, it won’t raise a huge amount of money (an estimated £550 million, which is about $900 [...]
I get the feeling that Brian Griffiths’ words at a panel discussion in London Tuesday might go down in history as some kind of let-them-eat-cakish landmark. Said the economist, a former Margaret Thatcher adviser who was raised to the peerage in 1991 and has been helping make ends meet since then by toiling away as [...]
