A security guard tries to stop a photographer taking pictures of the offices of Goldman Sachs in London. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images |
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.
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