Banksters rewarded for their crime

Goldman Sachs forced to reveal pay of top London staff

EU rules have forced Goldman Sachs, which publishes full-year results on Wednesday, to disclose it pays its top UK staff an average of £4m

the Guardian,

16 January, 2012

Ahead of the full-year results from Goldman Sachs on Wednesday it is worth taking a look at what the Wall Street firm paid its top flight staff in London in 2010. For the first time it has been forced to disclose, under EU rules, how it pays so-called "code staff" – those who are judged to be responsible for taking or managing risks – in its UK-based operations.

Regulatory filings for Goldman Sachs Group Holdings (UK) show that it had 95 code staff in 2010 who shared $269.5m (£175m) in cash (including salaries) and were handed 2m restricted stock units (RSUs), worth $320m at the $160-ish share price in 2010. At these prices – and it is an inexact science as the RSUs pay out over five years and their value will depend on the share price in the future (it is currently $98), this suggests an average pay deal of $6.2m for each of the 95, none of whom is identified by name.

A further 3.7m RSUs – which on the same basis were worth around $595m – were awarded during 2010 in "deferred compensation" to the code staff in one-off retention packages put in place by Goldman during 2010. Their exact value will not be known for five years.

As is always the case with pay deals, comparisons are tough. Even agreeing on a definition of code staff is tough. For instance Barclays disclosed last year that it had 231 code staff while RBS reckoned it had 323 who fitted the definition. At Barclays they received an average of £2.4m each during 2010 and had another £606m stored up in "unvested remuneration", while at bailed out RBS, the 323 received an average of £1.1m.

The Goldman numbers relate to 2010 – but still provide an illustration of how pay deals are constructed in the City.