Bank executives will enjoy pay increases in 2023, while rank-and-file employees were given an extra year of stingy bonuses, according to this week’s earnings report.
Nowhere was this more evident than at Standard Chartered, whose chief executive Bill Winters reported a 22% rise in his pay. bloombergHe said, citing the London-based bank’s 2023 earnings report released on Friday.
Mr. Winter’s total compensation jumped to about $9.9 million last year, even though Standard Chartered’s total bonuses fell 1% to $1.57 billion in 2023, Bloomberg reported. This was a significant increase from $8.1 million.
Among Wall Street’s largest financial institutions, the disparity between boardrooms and private offices was even worse.
Citibank President Jane Fraser’s salary will increase 6% to $26 million in 2023, while her total bonus will decrease by about 20%. London financial news.
“A lot of people were expecting it to be at least flat year over year,” an anonymous senior dealmaker at the company told the publication. “People were shocked.”
Fraser’s payment comes as Citi’s bank’s profits plunge 38% in 2023 from a year earlier.
Last November, Fraser Bank undertook a radical overhaul to consolidate its divisions, with the aim of reducing its global workforce from 239,000 to 180,000.
Citi said last month that 20,000 of its employees are expected to be given pink slips over the next two years after the bank reported its worst fourth-quarter profit in 15 years. .
Still, the bank’s board said the increase in remuneration was justified because Fraser had implemented “the most significant set of changes to our organization and operating model since the 2008 financial crisis” and the sale of its international business.
Among his Wall Street peers, former CEO of Morgan Stanley James Gorman saw his salary increase by 17% Toward the final yearThe bank also reduced the size of its bonus pool.
Dividends received by Morgan Stanley’s general companies will be cut by up to 15% from 2022 to 2023, Financial News reported.
Mr. Gorman is scheduled to officially retire in May, ending a nearly 20-year tenure at Morgan Stanley, which is expected to report a 32% decline in profits in fiscal 2023 from a year earlier. It was announced that the company had suffered a hit of up to $1 billion.
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon is another bank executive who has increased his pay despite sluggish profits.
Mr. Solomon’s salary increased by 24% even as Goldman suffered a slowdown in its investment banking business that led to thousands of layoffs, and the firm’s net income fell 24% last year.
Meanwhile, Goldman’s excess bonus pool was cut by a whopping 40%, while some traders were told to increase their payouts by 10%, according to Financial News.
CEO of JPMorgan Chase Jamie Dimon’s compensation also rose 4.3% after the nation’s largest lender posted a year of record profits.
The company posted a staggering profit of $49.6 billion in 2023, the highest in U.S. banking history.
As a result, compensation and morale among rank-and-file employees remained relatively stable, sources told the Post.
One employee went so far as to call his bonus “amazing.”
HSBC CEO Noel Quinn said his salary rose to ¥7 million last year despite widespread recession fears, persistently high inflation, job cuts and cost cuts that will characterize the financial sector in 2023. It was expected that sales would roughly double from US$13.4 million to US$13.4 million.
HSBC on Wednesday also reported a 12% increase in its bonus pool for 2023, bucking the trend of weak bonuses across the banking sector, according to Bloomberg, as it enjoyed record profits on the back of rising interest rates.
The two bank leaders didn’t have much to celebrate. Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan’s pay fell 3% to $29 million.
Furthermore, Barclays’ CS Venkatakrishnan was also an outlier.
His annual bonus was cut by 27% as the London-based firm cut its bonus pool by 3% after a 15% drop in profits due to lower activity in its investment banking division, Bloomberg reported.
