Mon, Jan 25, 2021 – 5:50 AM
New York
MORGAN Stanley chief executive officer James Gorman leaped past JPMorgan Chase‘s Jamie Dimon as the best-paid CEO of a major US bank.
Morgan Stanley boosted Mr Gorman’s pay 22 per cent to US$33 million for 2020, when the Wall Street bank posted its third consecutive year of record earnings. His pay includes US$1.5 million in salary and a US$7.88 million bonus, the firm said in a filing on Friday. The vast majority is in the form of US$23.6 million in long-term awards, which pay out in shares and are partially tied to return on equity and shareholder-return targets.
JPMorgan, the largest US bank, kept Mr Dimon’s total compensation unchanged at US$31.5 million for his work in 2020.
Mr Gorman’s firm is fresh off another year of record earnings and carried out two of the largest deals by a top Wall Street bank. The accompanying stock surge lifted its market value past US$130 billion, or nearly 30 per cent more than Goldman Sachs Group.
The Morgan Stanley chief took a surprise pay cut for 2019 amid record revenues and profit. The decision was tied to cost-cutting efforts and a round of layoffs.
In 2020, Morgan Stanley stuck to its promise of not undertaking job cuts to reassure jittery staff concerned about the course of the pandemic. Some rivals that made a similar pledge changed course as it became apparent that the problems wrought by the virus were likely to outlast their willingness to keep cost-cutting on hold. BLOOMBERG
