Goldman Trims Stock-Pay for Some Senior Executives
January 20 2017 - 5:01PM
Dow Jones News
By Liz Hoffman
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. cut stock awards for senior executives
in 2016 after revenue fell, but didn't disclose compensation for
CEO Lloyd Blankfein or several of his top deputies.
Shareholders won't get a picture of whether Mr. Blankfein beat
his $23 million haul from 2015 until later this spring. A person
familiar with the matter said the bank wouldn't be making year-end
equity disclosures for Mr. Blankfein or CFO Harvey Schwartz, who
made $20.5 million in 2015.
That likely means that the entire stock piece of their 2016 pay
is tied to how Goldman does over the next few years. Such
performance-based compensation doesn't have to be disclosed until
company's annual proxy statements.
Goldman in 2015 began tying a portion of top executives' pay to
return-on-equity targets, saying it had heard from shareholders
that they wanted officials' fortunes more closely tied to that of
investors.
In order for Mr. Blankfein and other top executives to receive
all of their stock awards, they will need to keep the firm's
average return on equity above 11% between 2016 and 2018. The firm
didn't clear that bar in 2015 or 2016.
Also missing from Friday's disclosures was Gary Cohn, who left
as president and chief operating officer at year-end for a senior
economic-policy job in the Trump White House.
Stock bonuses fell for several executives for whom Goldman did
make disclosures, including general counsel Greg Palm,
human-resources head Edith Cooper and accounting chief Sarah Smith,
who will soon move over to become the firm's head of compliance.
Stock awards, which typically make up about half of compensation
among Goldman's top brass, were down about 6% on average.
Goldman's 2016 revenue fell 9% over a year earlier, though
profits rose over 2015, when the bank set aside billions of dollars
to pay a mortgage settlement with the government.
David Solomon, the senior investment banker who was recently
named co-president and co-COO, received $9.8 million worth of
shares, using Thursday's closing price. His pay last year wasn't
disclosed.
His co-president and co-COO, Mr. Schwartz, also disclosed in a
filing that he sold $5.8 million worth of stock Thursday as part of
a prescheduled plan.
Pay at the upper echelons of Goldman has been fairly flat in
recent years, with Mr. Blankfein out-earning his top lieutenants by
relatively small margins.
Write to Liz Hoffman at liz.hoffman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 20, 2017 16:46 ET (21:46 GMT)
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