Barclays CEO Robert Diamond Awarded $10.6 Million Bonus

Last month, Barclays CEO Robert Diamond announced that while his banking company would continue to "exercise restraint" against large bonuses, the time had come to end "the period of remorse and apology" in the financial sector.

Today, Barclays announced Diamond has been awarded the largest bonus of any CEO at a British bank this year.

Barclays, ranked as the second-largest bank and financial services company in England, will award CEO Robert Diamond with a 2010 bonus of 6.5 million pounds, or roughly $10.6 million, for work done in 2009, Bloomberg News Reports.

For comparison's sake, here are some of the bonuses other CEOs at major banks and financial services companies received for the last year:

-- Lloyds Banking: CEO Eric Daniels received $2.36 million.

-- Royal Bank of Scotland: CEO Stephen Hester received $3.26 million stock bonus.

-- HSBC, Europe's largest bank: CEO Stuart Gulliver received $4.72 million.

-- Goldman Sachs: CEO Lloyd Blankfein received a $12.6 million stock bonus.

-- JPMorgan Chase & Co.: CEO Jamie Dimon received $17.4 million in restricted stock.

Diamond's compensation package is the latest indication of a return to high-priced pay packages for top financial CEOs. In 2009, bailed-out insurance giant AIG faced immense criticism for handing out $218 million in bonuses, leading many CEOs -- such as Royal Bank CEO Stephen Hester, Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack and Barclay's now former CEO John Varley -- to reject their bonuses outright.

So far this year, UBS CEO Oswald Gruebel remains the sole CEO of a major bank to reject his 2010 bonus.

It's still possible U.S. regulators could enact legislation to regulate the distribution of Wall Street bonuses. Last week, in a divisive 3-2 vote, the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed doing exactly that.

Comments

[americanpublic]

03:20 AM on 03/16/2011

Watch " Inside Job" it's all about the $$, Not anything else.

[fineartgalaxy]

01:15 PM on 03/11/2011

Yeah, right. He should be very happy that Americans have used a lot of "restrain". He should be blessed Americans still believe in paying debts and keeping a good credit score. He should consider himself very lucky that whatever he does he will never be unemployed and foreclosed on. He is lucky we are Americans.

[Keyop]

04:43 PM on 03/08/2011

We should have let the banks crash and this guy would have been jumping out of a window. Oh but things would have been so bad if that would have happened...please

[wardropper]

11:46 AM on 03/08/2011

Somehow, the word, "crook" comes to mind...

...as in "crooked", or a shepherd's "crook"...
...something bent out of shape... something distorted from its original template or archetype...

...as in, "My cronies are paying me a huge bonus:

a) because they can
b) because I want them to
and
c) because nobody can stop us"

Come on, America.
Stop these guys.
They're unconstitutional.

[atexasdem]

02:16 AM on 03/08/2011

After watching the video and the republican defending the bonuses, why am I not surprised? Republicans publicly criticize the bailout but defend massive bonuses paid with bail out money? Do they know hypnotism or something? How do they get their minions t go along with this?

[iskra]

01:22 PM on 03/08/2011

The GOP tells us that it's the teachers who are greedy and don't deserve their pay, not these guys.

[norgedude]

01:50 AM on 03/08/2011

nothing changes...why would we expect anything to be different...the greed continues...unabated...

[WrongApeture]

09:17 PM on 03/07/2011

Unless this guy can run the 40 in 4.3 seconds and bench press 350 29 times he shouldn't be getting anything but the finger. This guy looks like the "other" guy that fired you.

[themodernleader]

05:25 PM on 03/07/2011

     Banking interests that have defeated our Republic defeated the British democracy and their empire.  The financial interests control the British currency as banking interests are waging war against the American currency.

[demilieu]

02:14 PM on 03/07/2011

Looks like Diamond has the Midas touch. New parents - Who says there's nothing to a name?

[itolduso]

02:04 PM on 03/07/2011

....that's o.k........ as long as those dang teachers & firemen & cops accept cuts in pay & reduced benefits, and lose the right to collective bargaining, and can not be allowed to support their unions.....our new social order is safe

[jwoww]

03:12 PM on 03/07/2011

one has nothing to do with the other and all the banks who took or were forced to take govt money paid every penny back and then some in penalties and interest. TARP's failures are AIG, the auto companies with their prebankrupcy infusion and the small banks that use it as a slush fund.

[itolduso]

03:19 PM on 03/07/2011

The 'bail out' money SHOULD have been BAIL money, used to float the companies long enough to investigate & prosecute and then JAIL the criminal's who perpetrated the financial FRAUD that tanked the global economy...it should not have been used to make the criminal banking empire BIGGER, or the gansters running it wealthier.

[frommars]

03:56 PM on 03/07/2011

Good of you to stick up for the "big guys" otherwise all the bashing they rightfully get might hurt their feelings. Let me guess, you want to downsize government, slash benefits and pensions for public employees, deep cuts to social programs. Have I missed any? Poor poor bankers.

[Peter Combs]

01:59 PM on 03/07/2011

barclays did fine during the collapse, it got not one dime of help from the British Government and has been run the way other banks should have been run.

As for the money, its a lot less than we pay a good pitcher or quarter back in the USA. and a whole lot less than Brad Pitt gets.

[cats530]

02:02 PM on 03/07/2011

oh really?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/city-fury-over-terms-of-barclays-bailout-982269.html

[Peter Combs]

02:12 PM on 03/07/2011

try reading the article...they got nothing from the British Government.....

[mikala]

02:13 PM on 03/07/2011

I don't know how anyone can justify that kind of money for ANYONE. By the way this is a bonus not wage.

[countfloyd]

02:29 PM on 03/07/2011

Barclays net income in 2009 was £3.511 billion. Diamond's bonus works out to .19% of the net. It doesn't bother me he gets that much money. The question is rather how much of it is being taxed?

[Carl Caroli]

01:35 PM on 03/07/2011

$11M, way more than a hard working man or woman makes in a life time. What did he do? Cure cancer? Create an alternative energy? Fix the financial crisis? Exactly what did he do to deserve such thanks?

[cats530]

01:41 PM on 03/07/2011

I don't know but he couldn't manage to get the turkey whattle or the class 3 malocclusion fixed, even with all of his money.

[globality]

02:16 PM on 03/07/2011

Something you can't

[inmyhumbleopinion]

01:30 PM on 03/07/2011

"...the time (has) come to end the period of remorse and apology in the financial sector."

Um, really? I was thinking just the opposite. The hubris of these guys make the protagonists of Greek tragedies pale in comparison. We can only hope their downfall will be as spectacular.

[Michael Garvin]

01:47 PM on 03/07/2011

Seriously,

The time has come to institute a maximum income cap for any US citizen working in the financial sector. How about a cool 1,000,000 a year ceiling. The rest is taxed and immediately transferred to a non profit, charitable organization or NGO of that citizens choice

[Peter Combs]

02:00 PM on 03/07/2011

hes not an American...Barclays is a British Bank.....and was unaffected for the most part by the collapse...

[jcarterla]

01:20 PM on 03/07/2011

I just watched Inside Job yesterday and this story makes me want to get some armor and a horse and go to battle.

[blessedfrog]

01:23 PM on 03/07/2011

Really - everyone should see that

[jcarterla]

01:26 PM on 03/07/2011

The best parts are when the interview subjects get all upset because the interviewer won't accept their fraudulent answers.

[Peter Combs]

02:01 PM on 03/07/2011

Barclays was not affected by the collapse and got no financial assitance from the British Government..

[StuffMoreStuff]

02:07 PM on 03/07/2011

I'd stop saying that BCS was 'unaffected' though. They were plenty 'affected' bit it in terms of the bottom line since they had similar overprived housing in UK. You're right though they never took a dime from the US or the UK. In many ways they did everybody a favor by picking up pieces of Lehman. Granted they got a pretty good price, but at least a few less people ended up jobless as a result.

[WM2]

12:03 PM on 03/08/2011

peter are you seeing Charlie Sheen's shrink again