Compensation

  • 09 Dec 2010 at 2:32 PM

Citi Officially Ready To Pay A Premium For Talent

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As you may or may not have noticed, things have really been looking up at Citi. The bank beat Goldman at something, it got the government’s ball-gag removed from its mouth and today comes the news it was able to land a big hire in academic rainmaker, Peter Orszag, whose job description is “youngest member of Citi’s Senior Strategic Advisory group, a counsel of Wall Street wise men that its bankers can call on to parachute in with advice on complex deals.” And that’s not all. Continue reading »

  • 06 Dec 2010 at 3:54 PM

New York Hedge Fund Roundtable Chair Suggests Interesting Propsal For Manager Pay: Caps

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“How much better do you live with $2 billion than $50 million?” chairman and founder of the New York Hedge Fund Roundtable Stanely Goldstein recently asked, the insinuation being that one does not feel much of a difference between living comfortably and living at a pay grade that affords you at least one private jet, multiple castles, an oil tanker, 1,000 eunuchs, a McMansion in every city in America (for storage), and a wing in your main house dedicated solely to deep-frying things. Goldstein wanted to make that case because it would help garner support for an idea he has: to cap hedge fund manager pay. Now, before everyone gets their fleece knickers in a twist, know this– Stan is doing this for you! “I am a free-market economy, right-of-center Republican, and I resent how the liberals have used hedge funds as a punching bag,” Goldstein said. The way he sees it, hedge fund managers would be much happier if they took home a number that wouldn’t be “ridiculed” by the public. Continue reading »

  • 14 Oct 2010 at 10:43 AM

Amidst News Of Lower Compensation, Occidental President-cum-CEO Addresses, Allays Our Fears

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The big oil and natural-gas company said Thursday that its 75-year-old CEO will retire at the 2011 annual meeting, and will be succeeded by President Stephen I. Chazen. Mr. Irani will remain executive chairman until the end of 2014. The two executives also will get a “substantially lower” maximum payout under a new long-term compensation plan than they were eligible for in previous plans, according to the company…The CEO-designate isn’t worried about his lower potential pay. During an interview Wednesday, he said that he and Mr. Irani already own a lot of Occidental shares. “You don’t have to worry about either of us eating cat food at home because the comp is going down,” Mr. Chazen said. [WSJ]

  • 10 Sep 2010 at 2:42 PM

Blind Item: Which Hedge Fund Will Pay A Portfolio Manager $50+ Million For Losing 25% In A Year?

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For the fiscal year ending in June 2009, Yale’s endowment fell 24.6 percent. In that same time period, Chief Investment Officer David Swensen’s salary and benefits totaled $5.3 million, up from $4.3 million in ’07-’08. Some people think this is an outrage. Today University administrators explained the rationale behind Swensen’s package.

On Wall Street or even at other universities, they say, the several million Swensen makes yearly would be a pittance for an investor as renowned as he is. Endowment managers at Harvard have earned as much as $35 million recently, dwarfing Swensen’s and Takahashi’s pay. “Here’s a guy who could make 10 times his salary,” former deputy provost Charles Long said of Swensen last April. “But his goal is to make as much money as he can for Yale.”

Continue reading »

  • 09 Aug 2010 at 12:45 PM

Money And Votes, Checks And Balances

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The following post is by Dealbreaker reader and commenter Infinite Guest.

When Congressman Barney Frank said “money is influential, but votes will kick money’s ass any time they come up against each other,” he wasn’t referring to votes on the floor of the House and Senate, nor to the money our elected officials are paid, nor the money they tax and spend. Those votes and that money are never in conflict, but they should always be. Continue reading »

  • 25 Jun 2010 at 12:45 PM

Tony Hayward’s Lucky Streak In Potential Jeopardy

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Things have been going pretty nicely for Tony Hayward lately. He finally got taken off that bitch of a project his boss had him working on ’round the clock, thereby freeing up his time to really get out there and live life to the fullest, he was able to take in some nice yacht races and his sets at the Laugh Factory‘s latest open mic night went really, really well (NB: with the right execution, an oil spill joke can be quite the crowd pleaser). In fact, he was actually kicking around the idea of quitting his job entirely, and truly giving that stand-up a shot. Sure, it would be hard at first– this is something he’s never done this professionally, and it would be a while before he could begin to even think about possibly making a living off of it. But, he did have a nice golden parachute to look forward to, which could help the gap period before he really made it big. Or at least he thought he did. So this? Was a real kick in the pants. Continue reading »

  • 26 May 2010 at 1:08 PM

CEO’s No One Gives A Rat’s Ass About Bravely Gave The Finger To 2009′s Compensation Trend

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Wells Fargo’s John Stumpf. Travelers Cos’s Jay Fishman. Chubb Corp’s John Finnegan. According to the July issue of Bloomberg Markets, all three men “are defying a trend,” by taking home $21.3 million, $20.6 million, and $19.2 million, while many of their fellow CEO’s dialed it down on payday. Why were they able to take such a stand, in the face of populist outrage, Ken Feinberg and the shouts of random passersby that Wall Street S’s major D? Obviously the answer is that nobody gives a crap about these guys. Continue reading »