Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs CEO's, Pay Increased 14 Percent To $16.1 Million In 2011

NEW YORK — Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein received total compensation of $16.1 million in 2011, a 14 percent increase from the year before.

In a regulatory filing posted Friday morning, the New York investment bank detailed Blankfein's compensation for last year. Goldman paid its chairman and CEO a salary of $2 million, a bonus of $3 million and stock awards worth $10.7 million.

Blankfein's total pay included $9,800 in matching payments to his retirement plan, $51,467 for a car and driver and $258,701 for security services. The amount Goldman paid for his security more than doubled from the year before.

Goldman said it believes the security provided for its executive officers "is required in light of the elevated threat profile in the current environment." The statement called the security services "business-related necessities" for Goldman's high-profile executives.

Blankfein's pay rose even as Goldman Sachs endured an unusually tough year. Goldman reported a 47 percent drop in earnings to $4.4 billion in 2011, as rocky financial markets battered Goldman along with the rest of Wall Street. That included a third quarter in which the bank lost money for only the second time since it became a publicly traded company in 1999.

The bank's net income for the last three months of the year fell 58 percent as fear about the European debt crisis kept the stock and bond markets volatile and clients of all the major banks shied away from mergers as well as new sales of stock.

Among the titans of Wall Street, Blankfein ranks in the middle of the pack when it comes to compensation. Morgan Stanley, Goldman's closest rival, paid its CEO, James Gorman, $13 million. Bank of America gave Brian Moynihan $7.5 million.

JPMorgan Chase, the country's largest bank, paid Jamie Dimon a total of $23 million.

Blankfein had the pricier tab for his security detail. JPMorgan shelled out $21,375 to protect Dimon's home, according to a regulatory filing made last week. Occupy Wall Street protesters marched to Dimon's home on Manhattan's Upper East Side last October, chanting "Tax the rich!" They marched to Goldman's headquarters the next month, accusing the bank of a variety of misdeeds and demanding that Blankfein be sent to prison.

Goldman's practices have also come under fire from federal regulators and its own employees. In an agreement announced Thursday, Goldman said it would pay $22 million to settle regulatory charges that its analysts shared confidential research with favored clients.

Greg Smith, an executive director at the bank, resigned last month with a blistering essay in The New York Times. Smith said the bank was losing its "moral fiber," by putting profits ahead of its clients' interests and dismissing customers as "muppets."

Goldman could bounce back with solid results when it reports earnings Tuesday. Analysts expect it to report a profit of $3.46 per share on revenue of $9.3 billion, according to the data provider FactSet.

The AP calculation of executive compensation aims to isolate the value company boards place on CEOs' total pay package. It includes salary, bonus, incentives, perks and the estimated value of stock options and awards.

Comments

[Cratewasher]

10:53 PM on 04/15/2012

Because he performed so well?

[Kai-HK]

10:24 PM on 04/15/2012

Excellent News. He has done a great job of steering this great American company through very challenging economic times. We need more CEO’s like him since they make America increasingly better.

Kai

[ictks]

08:20 PM on 04/15/2012

The amazing thing is he will only pay regular tax on the salary and bonus. When he sells the stock he will only pay 15%.....capital gains. That's why these guys take most of their pay from these corps in stock...just another way to screw the system.

[Rick Goodner]

07:56 PM on 04/15/2012

The Bankers are Vampyers and their slave Zombies TeabaggingRepubGOPers protect them... Time to go hunting. :-)

[T Trump]

04:58 PM on 04/15/2012

Lloyd Blankfein would make a great creature on the TV show Grimm. Some type of a half rat half human.

[Lindytindy]

09:28 AM on 04/15/2012

Isn't it just wonderful knowing that a psychotic like this Blankfein creature is running our lives, destroying our lives and our country. With help from his good buddy Obama. Laughing wildly as they crush us muppets under their feet. I've worked for people like this, they really see us as nothing but cockroaches, in their world only elites count as human beings. The rest of us are here for their convenience, expendable.

[robnelsong]

04:01 PM on 04/14/2012

Matt Taibbi really did the world a huge favor with his "vampire squid" article and analogy. Goldman, Morgan Stanley and their ilk are essentially parasites attached to the economy of the US and other nations. They need to be removed and preserved in formaldehyde for studies by future generations.

[jistinnkees]

12:37 PM on 04/14/2012

I think we were "created" for a galactic comedy show.

[Lindytindy]

09:25 AM on 04/15/2012

Visiting aliens just zoom over earth, with warnings not to land no matter what. For them, it's a freak show. An experiment gone wildly awry.

[oldbentbrains]

11:20 AM on 04/14/2012

no amount of bathing and scented oils could ever remove the stench from this ........................

[Alux]

09:43 AM on 04/14/2012

Obama's boss gets a bonus. A big bonus. A really, really big bonus.

And why not? Goldman Sachs wholly-owned subsidiary at the White House has kept everyone at the Vampire Squid away from investigators, free to carry on as before the crisis, but now with trillions of free money from the Fed, and best of all NOBODY goes to jail!

You have to agree that is worth a lot, don't you?

[Brian Gilmer]

10:07 AM on 04/14/2012

"Blankfein's pay rose even as Goldman Sachs endured an unusually tough year. Goldman reported a 47 percent drop in earnings to $4.4 billion in 2011, as rocky financial markets battered Goldman along with the rest of Wall Street. "

What is more important earnings or staying out of jail?

[AlfredE69]

09:21 AM on 04/14/2012

Too big to fail is Un American. Next time, file for bankruptcy you freeloader.

[Joseph LeCompte]

07:59 AM on 04/14/2012

Investigations,fines,bad quarters,bad year, still get a bonus and raise. Theses guys have hijacked their own corporations.

[Ginta California]

05:25 AM on 04/14/2012

How to make a buck in this new economy: Sell tomato's for $2 each outside their corporate hq's. If they hit someone they get another tomato.

[Unity2012]

02:15 AM on 04/14/2012

He is a usurer.

[hipocampelofantocame]

12:39 AM on 04/14/2012

Actually what, if anything, has Lloyd Blankfein (shiny delicate: German trans.) added to
value in the market. He is and was, not ever a banker, but rather a trader on Wall Street.
That one such a poorly founded person can so screw this nation financially, and not only
get away with it, but continue unabated doing it, is an anathema to me. We are like the
bee colony with a mouse in the hive; we seem to be unable to react. It's high time to
change our business paradigm, and soon.