Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rock_nj who wrote (186048)	2/1/2010 6:46:47 AM
From: Travis_Bickle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 362944

Which law is that?

To: Rock_nj who wrote (186048)	2/2/2010 6:01:42 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 362944

Banks Should Disclose Top Employees’ Pay, Frank Says (Update1) By Jesse Westbrook Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Representative Barney Frank said regulators should force companies to disclose compensation for their best-paid employees, potentially forcing Wall Street to reveal how much top traders and money managers earn every year. The Securities and Exchange Commission “should expand the disclosure,” Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in an interview yesterday. “They can do that without us. There’s no point in legislating.” The SEC requires companies to disclose compensation for chief executive officers, chief financial officers and the three highest-paid executive officers. The rules don’t apply to employees such as Andrew Hall, the former head of Citigroup Inc.’s energy-trading unit, who got about $100 million in 2008. The agency dropped a proposal four years ago to make firms reveal the compensation of non-executives after business groups said it would stir jealousy among employees and help recruiters steal prized talent. The comments by Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, show that lawmakers want the SEC to revisit the issue amid fury in Washington over banks paying billions of dollars in bonuses a year after receiving government bailouts. Lawmakers are discussing expanding legislation that lets shareholders weigh in on corporate pay, Frank said. The House approved a measure in December to give investors a non-binding vote on the compensation for the five executives named in companies’ proxies. The expansion under discussion would give shareholders of financial companies a vote on the percentage of annual revenue that’s allocated to pay, Frank said. No Constraints Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co. set aside $39.9 billion for pay in 2009, below the 2007 record of $44.7 billion. The companies faced no constraints on executive pay after repaying federal funds received at the height of a global credit freeze in 2008. SEC spokesman John Nester didn’t immediately respond to a phone call and e-mail requesting comment. The SEC last year required companies to explain how their pay policies might prompt employees to take risks that trigger losses. The agency didn’t make businesses reveal how much they paid workers. The rule responded to concerns that Wall Street pay practices contributed to the financial crisis by rewarding bankers for executing deals without regard to whether those transactions proved profitable over time. 2006 Proposal The SEC’s 2006 proposal would have required companies to disclose the compensation for as many as three employees who received more pay than any executive officer. Firms wouldn’t have been required to identify the employees by name. The proposal would have helped hedge funds poach traders from investment banks and inflated pay, because employees would use disclosed salaries and bonuses as benchmarks, a Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association predecessor argued in an April 2006 letter to the SEC. After reviewing comment letters, the SEC issued a revised proposal that would have only required the biggest companies to list employee pay, and disclosure would have been limited to workers responsible for “significant policy decisions.” As a result, most traders, entertainers and professional athletes would have been excluded, the SEC said. The new plan failed to win support from Wall Street firms and corporations and the SEC dropped the proposal. To contact the reporter on this story: Jesse Westbrook in Washington at jwestbrook1@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: February 2, 2010 15:09 EST

To: Rock_nj who wrote (186048)	2/2/2010 9:35:37 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 362944

Bank of America Said to Pay Bankers Average Bonus of $400,000 By David Mildenberg Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Bank of America Corp., the nation’s largest lender, will pay investment-banking employees bonuses of about $4.4 billion for last year, or an average of $400,000 each, a person close to the bank said. As much as 95 percent will be paid in stock vesting over about three years, the person said. Those receiving the smallest bonuses will get about half their compensation in cash, paid later this month, the person said. The unit accounts for 10,000 people, or 4 percent of the bank’s 283,000 workers. Bank of America, the target of political wrath for its acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co. even as the faltering Wall Street firm handed out $3.6 billion of employee bonuses, reaped a $6.3 billion profit in 2009. This year’s investment bank bonuses are a third less than $6.5 billion that the combined units would have paid in the peak year of 2006, the person said, citing internal Bank of America calculations. “Those numbers sound like the kind of numbers we’d expect to be hearing from Wall Street firms,” said Steven Hall, managing director of New York-based Steven Hall & Partners, an executive compensation consulting firm. The Financial Times cited unidentified people as saying that top Bank of America performers in global banking and markets will receive bonuses of about $5 million, while managing directors will get $2.5 million to $3 million. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan “We attempted to balance the need to pay competitively with our understanding of the general concern over the level of compensation on Wall Street,” spokesman Robert Stickler said. “The most important thing is that much more of year-end compensation is now deferred and tied to long-term stock performance and there are clawbacks.” Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s investment bank slashed their compensation in the fourth quarter. The three firms set aside $39.9 billion for pay in 2009, below the 2007 record of $44.7 billion. The total fell short of the $46.1 billion five analysts expected this year and is almost $10 billion less than what some analysts estimated in October. JPMorgan’s investment bank had the lowest ratio of the three of total pay to revenue, at 33 percent. Goldman Sachs’s rate was 36 percent and it was 62 percent at Morgan Stanley. Bank of America’s bonus figures equate to about 19 percent of the investment bank’s $23 billion in revenue. Moynihan’s Salary Bumped At Bank of America, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, the bonuses equate to 19 percent of revenue at the investment bank. That ratio would have been 26 percent in 2006, the person briefed on the matter said. Separately, Bank of America said in a regulatory filing that it raised the base salary of new Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan to $950,000 this year from $800,000 in 2009. The bank also boosted the salaries of Joe Price, head of consumer, small business and card banking, and Barbara Desoer, head of home loans and insurance, to $800,000 from $500,000. Details on the executives’ 2009 compensation will be reported in the bank’s annual proxy statements. Twenty-eight Bank of America employees and 149 Merrill employees received bonuses of at least $3 million for 2008, according to a report last year by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Those 149 Merrill employees received a combined $858 million, an average of $5.8 million, the report said. Bank of America in December repaid $45 billion in federal bank-rescue aid, freeing the company from restrictions on compensation. To contact the reporter on this story: David Mildenberg in Charlotte at dmildenberg@bloomberg.net Last Updated: February 2, 2010 20:11 EST