Shareowners, governments and the general public must surely faint at this news? What has it got to do with me you might ask? Well Goldman or Goldmine as they are known are a major supplier of fund management contracts to the LGPS, they manage your money and many LGPS funds are shareholders in Goldman.
The company accounts reveal the bank's chief executive Lloyd Blankfein is in line for an astonishing 233% increase in his basic pay in 2011, which rises from $600,000 to $2m despite a 38% slump in the bank's profits.
Blankfein last year was paid free shares worth nearly $13m, up from $9m in 2009, indicating that City and Wall Street remuneration is rising despite pleas by international regulators and politicians for financiers to show restraint. Michael Sherwood, one of the heads of Goldman's British and European operations is being awarded free shares worth $14.4m (£9m). That represents a 60% increase on the value of the stock award he received in 2009.
Goldman does not reveal whether Sherwood is also a recipient of a cash bonus. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jan/30/goldman-sachs-bonuses-executive-pay
What a reward for running the company into the ground, and for their part in destroying the economic hopes of millions of Americans, spreading debt contagion around the world and greedily gobbling up billions of dollars in bailout loans in 2008 and 2009. Jail sentences would have been fairer, don’t you think?
