In the former category: almost everyone. No specific numbers yet, but Barclays is expected to announce next week that only about 38% of revenue generated will go towards payouts (one of the lowest levels in the firm’s history). In the latter category: Bob Diamond. The Barclays Capital chief’s take home will be clocking in at about £20m, though it’s going to be deferred for three years so, you know, it’s not that great. Certainly nothing to be envious about, unless you’re this li’l fella, who’s making less than everyonethis year. But lest any of the Barclettes think Bobby’s not worth every penny, let us remind you, he works hard for the money.
[Bob] has a habit of taking off his suit jacket and slinging it over his shoulder before sitting on the edge of one of the trading desks — a habit that his traders describe as his move, as in, “he has this thing he does with his jacket, when he wants to talk to us, it’s his move…”
Here’s the Bill Nighy video advertising the Robin Hood Tax, which is calling for a 0.05% tax on banking transactions. The tax could potentially raise at least $100 billion pounds to fight against child poverty and tackle poverty and climate change around the world, according to the campaign. At least one or two enterprising hackers at GS may have a problem with that.
Not a single investment banker I spoke with from any industry or product groups was happy with their number. A bonus of more than 140 resulted in 30-35% deferred compensation. Third year associates getting promoted were told they had to pay for their promotion and were “taxed.” The ranges for IB associates (just bonus) are as follows:
$$$Ex-Goldman Programmer Indicted Over Software Theft [BW] $$$ Ken Lewis’s drinking buddy retires. [Charlotte Observer] $$$ Lenny Dykstra might’ve scammed his son out of a little money. Which means he might be even more desperate than we thought, and is all the more reason for you to sign up for Nails Investments today. [ESPN] $$$ Former Goldman Exec: Of course we front run our clients. [BI] $$$ The site wasn’t so accessible today, huh? Either on the logging on to it side or the ability to publish stories side? I know. They’re moving our servers and some other stuff, which is causing everything to majorly blow. No one feels this pain more than me. Bear with us. And there’ll be something in it for you.
GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt said today that while he did indeed have a discussion with Hank Paulson in September 2008, it had nothing to do with his irm’s commercial paper woes, as the former Treasury Secretary claims in his new book.
Rather than get defensive about the whole thing, Hank, through his publicist, said that he was merely “relying on memories,” and he was under so much stress that he’s not really sure they were accurate at this point.
“To write this book, I called on the memories of many of the people who were with me during these events. Given the high degree of stress during this time and the extraordinary number of problems I was juggling in a single day, and often in a single hour, I am sure there are many details I will never recall.”
So there you have it. You should expect he got some stuff wrong. Hope that helped cleared things up.
Och-Ziff, with $24 billion in aum, raked in $500 million during the past month and a half, with half being in capital inflows and half in performance-related appreciation. “The capital inflow cycle for the hedge fund industry has begun and our assets under management will grow over time.”
Here are some highlights from Och’s SEC filings:
•Full-year net returns through December 31, 2009 for the OZ Master Fund of 23.1%, the OZ Europe Master Fund of 16.4%, the OZ Asia Master Fund of 34.0% and the OZ Global Special Investments Master Fund of 8.4%
•Distributable Earnings for the 2009 fourth quarter and full year of $281.4 million, or $0.69 per Adjusted Class A Share, and $355.3 million, or $0.88 per Adjusted Class A Share, respectively
•Assets under management of $23.5 billion as of January 1, 2010, a 6% increase from $22.1 billion as of January 1, 2009, reflecting performance-related appreciation of $4.2 billion partially offset by $2.8 billion in net outflows
Full filing here.
Last week, Goldman Sachs management told an analyst that despite a lower than normal compensation ratio of 36% for 2009, they weren’t sweating people leaving the mothership because relative to everyone other bank on the Street, they’re still making it rain ka-ching! on people’s faces. Slightly arrogant, sure, but not necessarily untrue. Can this same bold claim be made by certain other banks like, say Citi? One guy says yes.
Citigroup is at no disadvantage when it comes to paying employees, the bank’s chief financial officer said on Thursday. The bank was able to pay employees competitively in 2009 and is subject to the same compensation oversight in 2010 as its major competitors, John Gerspach said at a conference hosted by Credit Suisse.
“We’re not fighting with any hands behind our back,” Gerspach said.
Elizabeth Warren, head of the Congressional Oversight Panel for TARP, said in her monthly report that it would be nice if the government would wake up and do something about the commercial real estate losses yet to come, ’cause until they do, “the crisis will not end.” The “CRE is the next shit to hit the fan” lullaby has been going on for about two years now and despite a lukewarm consensus that something, anything, has to be done, seems like no one has a real clue how to go about it, or dare we say, give two cents about it?
“The most serious wave of commercial real estate difficulties is just now beginning. Experts believe that the volume of bank write-downs and potential loan defaults may swell in the coming years, in the absence of a strong immediate improvement in the economy.”
Riiiight. Given that the unemployment rate is not likely to decrease anytime soon, that vacancy rates are increasing, that the economy’s fundamentals remain weak and that between 2010 and 2014, about $1.4 trillion in CRE loans will reach the end of their terms, it’s totally fine to write a 189-page exposé on the subject, but solutions anyone?
Would you gladly accept all-stock bonuses if you didn’t have to worry about RBS debt not impressing your girl (would-be wife or favorite Flashdancer)? This guy says yes. He also posits that in this world sans ladies (or sans the ladies who care about the size of your package), you people probably wouldn’t have gone into your chosen professions at all, nor would you have stressed about things like learning to read.
This paper examines the extent to which human capital and career decisions are affected by their potential returns in the marriage market. Although schooling and career decisions often are made before getting married, these decisions are likely to affect the future chances of receiving a marriage offer, the type of offer, and the probability of getting divorced. Therefore, I estimate a forward‐looking model of the marriage and career decisions of young men between the ages of 16 and 39. The results show that if there were no returns to career choices in the marriage market, men would tend to work less, study less, and choose blue‐collar jobs over white‐collar jobs.
Bloomberg Xs & O (NYP)
Apparently Obama doesn’t love Dimon and Blankfein’s packages as much as Bloomberg would’ve had us believe. The White House claims the newswire took the Presidents statements out of context yesterday, and released a transcript of the interview, wherein he’d added, after saying all those nice things: “I do think that the compensation packages that we’ve seen over the last decade at least have not matched up always to performance.” AIG Launches New System for Incentive Pay (Reuters)
Under the plan, which is being pushed by Chief Executive Robert Benmosche, AIG will rank employees on a scale of 1 to 4, based on how they do relative to their peers. The top rank will go to only 10 percent of the employees, who will be eligible to get higher incentive pay. Rank “2″ will go to 20 percent of the employees and rank 3 will be given to 50 percent. Those who get rank 4 will get minimal incentive pay. Credit Suisse swings to profit as inflows continue (MarketWatch)
The bank reported a net profit of 793 million Swiss francs ($745 million) in the final quarter of 2009, compared to a loss of 6.02 billion francs a year earlier, when the business took write-downs on risky loans and other assets. Wall Street’s Biggest Bonuses Go To Not So Big Names (NYT)
Topping the list is John G. Stumpf, head of Wells Fargo, according to an analysis of 2009 compensation in the industry. Mr. Stumpf was paid a personal best of $18.7 million in cash and stock for 2009 — up 64 percent from 2007, just before the financial crisis struck. But he’s not Lloyd or Jamie so no one cares. Global bank tax near, says Brown (FT)
Gordon Brown said on Wednesday the world’s leading economies were close to agreeing a global bank tax, amid hopes in Downing Street that a deal can be concluded at the G20 summit in Canada in June. Gundlach Sues TWC For $1.25 Billion (NYT) Gundlach asserted that he was wrongfully dismissed, and he denied stealing any of the firm’s intellectual property. “I believe the facts stack up overwhelmingly on our side,” Mr. Gundlach said in a statement. “I would be delighted to see this case go to trial tomorrow, if that were feasible.” Imagine what he could do with $1.25 billion.
In the former category: almost everyone. No specific numbers yet, but Barclays is expected to announce next week that only about 38% of revenue generated will go towards payouts (one of the lowest levels in the firm’s history). In the latter category: Bob Diamond. The Barclays Capital chief’s take home will be clocking in at about £20m, though it’s going to be deferred for three years so, you know, it’s not that great. Certainly nothing to be envious about, unless you’re this li’l fella, who’s making less than everyone this year. But lest any of the Barclettes think Bobby’s not worth every penny, let us remind you, he works hard for the money.
