Wall Street Executives Made $3 Billion Before
Crisis (Update1)
By Tom Randall and Jamie McGee

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.
``Shareholders and boards should have done something about this a long time
ago,'' said Charles Elson, director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate
Governance at the University of Delaware in Newark. ``They justified these
levels of pay on the idea that they're all geniuses. I think that balloon has
burst.''
Wall Street firms have shared profits liberally with employees. The five
biggest -- Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Merrill, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and
Bear Stearns -- paid their 185,687 employees $66 billion in 2007, as problems
with subprime mortgages mounted, including about $39 billion in bonuses. That
amounts to average pay of $353,089 per employee, including an average bonus of
$211,849. The five firms had combined net income of $93 billion during the five
years through 2007.
CEO Pay Doubled
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.
`Make It Rain'
Wall Street firms have paid employees a greater share of revenue than any
other industry, about 50 percent, Crystal said. That tradition at investment
banks comes from their history as closely held partnerships of investors who put
their own capital at risk, he said.
``In Wall Street and Hollywood, the profits tend to come in great big
packets, and everyone wants a piece,'' said Crystal, a former Bloomberg
columnist. ``Whether it's the movie `Dark Knight' or a huge merger deal, he who
can make it rain, he who can bring everyone to the theater, can earn whatever he
wants.''
Until the rain stops.
Lehman Brothers filed for the biggest bankruptcy in history on Sept. 15, with
more than $613 billion in debt. The same day, Merrill Lynch was sold to Bank of
America for $29 a share, about 70 percent below the stock's high of $97.53 on
Jan. 24, 2007.
Goldman and Morgan Stanley, the two biggest independent U.S. investment
banks, were forced to convert to bank holding companies, giving them more access
to Federal Reserve funds and buying time to acquire deposits. Goldman Chief
Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein made $57.6 million in 2007 in salary and
bonus, which includes stock and options granted at the beginning of the fiscal
year to reward performance the previous year. Co- presidents Gary Cohn and Jon
Winkelried each got $56 million.
`Tied to Performance'
Morgan Stanley's current and former chief executives, John Mack and Philip
Purcell, were paid about $194 million over the last five years.
Mark Lake, a spokesman for Morgan Stanley, pointed to Mack's decision not to
take a bonus for 2007 and said the $1.6 million in salary and other compensation
he was awarded last year isn't ``a lot'' compared with other Wall Street CEOs.

``He has taken everything he had since rejoining the firm in equity, other
than salary,'' Lake said. ``There's a difference in taking stock in the firm as
a bonus and taking cash. Stock in the firm, obviously you are tied to
performance of the firm.''
Goldman Sachs spokesman Michael Duvally declined to comment. Merrill Lynch
spokeswoman Jessica Oppenheim, JPMorgan spokesman Brian Marchiony and Lehman
spokeswoman Monique Wise didn't return calls for comment.
Paulson, Bush
``The American people are angry about executive compensation, and rightfully
so,'' Paulson told a House panel on Sept. 24, departing from his prepared
remarks. ``We must find a way to address this in the legislation, but without
undermining the effectiveness of this program.''
President George W. Bush said that night in a televised address to the nation
that the plan would provide ``urgently needed money so banks and other financial
institutions can avoid collapse'' and ``should make certain that failed
executives do not receive a windfall from your tax dollars.''
Congressional Republicans splintered late yesterday over the proposed $700
billion rescue plan. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said this morning at a
news conference that Democrats are circulating a draft of legislation that
contains limits on executive compensation and ensures that Congress has
oversight over the bailout. Lawmakers from both parties are meeting again today
in Washington.
Weak Record
The U.S. government has a weak record when it comes to regulating
compensation, said Kevin Murphy, a professor of finance at the Marshall School
of Business at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
``Every government attempt that has existed to limit or regulate CEO pay has
backfired,'' Murphy said. ``I'm fairly confident this one will backfire too.
There are always loopholes.''
Regulation of golden parachutes, or protection for executives in the case of
an acquisition, were circumvented in the 1980s with severance agreements, and
Nixon's wage-and-price- control experiment in the 1970s ultimately failed,
Murphy said.
``It's either the compensation committee or the general counsel or the head
of human resources who are trying to negotiate a pay package with someone who
will be their boss in a week,'' he said. ``These are things that can be done a
lot better.''
Corporate Governance
Rather than government regulation, the solution is in better corporate
governance, Elson said. Companies should negotiate more aggressively with
executives and should establish rules that encourage shareholders to protest
excessive pay. The rescue package is not the place to have that debate, he said.

``This will get in the way'' of passing the $700 billion financial rescue
legislation, Elson said. ``We are in a crisis. The patient is dying. Let's work
on the details as soon as we get the patient out of the emergency room when we
can do it in a thoughtful or deliberate manner.''
Not all Wall Street CEOs have escaped unscathed. Cayne sold a Bear Stearns
holding once worth $1 billion for $61 million in March. Lehman's Chief Executive
Officer Richard Fuld, who made $165 million between 2003 and 2007, sold 2.88
million of his firm's shares for 16 cents to 30 cents apiece, or less than
$500,000, according to a regulatory filing.
Fuld owned 10.9 million shares and restricted stock units as of Jan. 31,
valued at $931 million at their peak. He also had in- the-money options and
other stock worth almost $300 million, according to Crystal.
To contact the reporter on this story: Tom Randall in New York at
trandall6@bloomberg.net; Jamie McGee in New York at jmcgee8@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: September 26, 2008 13:56 EDT

Comments Please !!!!

You've gotta wonder what those high paid hotshots do with all those bonuses and fat pay cheques? You can only buy so much in this world and then it'll end up being excess stuff that they don't really need. Seems like they've all had their hand in the cash register all along, feathering their own nests while the going's been good and now things have turned upside down, us 'little' people have to prop 'em up now.

I despise banks now but never had much respect for them before anyway. To compensate, they'll probably be making redundancies on the lower levels now to save their own backsides. Seems like it's the 'little' person always ends up taking the fall for it.

This post has been edited by Weybridge: Sep 28 2008, 03:55 AM

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