Bankers' Earnings Surge Towards Pre-Crash Levels

Pay and bonuses in the City are surging back to their pre-crash levels despite widespread criticism of the Square Mile and the banking industry, which was rescued by the taxpayer 18 months ago.

The steep rise in earnings is likely to put pressure on the coalition government to impose a clampdown on City pay practices, which the Liberal Democrats in particular attacked while in opposition.'

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RBS to Pay £1.7 Billion in Bonuses despite £3.6 Billion Loss

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which is 84 per cent owned by the British taxpayer, will pay out up to £1.7 billion in bonuses to its bankers after reporting a £3.6 billion pre-tax loss for the past financial year.

The loss for the 12 months to December 31 is less than the £5 billion expected and far below the £24.3 billion loss that RBS reported for 2008, a record for any British company.

However, the bank is facing criticism over its decision to reward investment bankers with bonuses worth £1.3 billion, or 27 per cent of its revenue, after receiving billions of pounds in taxpayers' money during the recession to save it from collapse. Other staff will share up to £400 million in bonuses.'

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RBS Braced for Bonus Row With Planned £1.3 Billion Payout

Loss-making Royal Bank of Scotland is braced for a row over City pay next week when it is expected to admit that its bonus pot for 22,000 investment bankers has reached £1.3bn – against last year's £1bn.

The Edinburgh-based bank is awaiting approval from UK Financial Investments, the body that looks after the taxpayer's 84% stake in the bank, for its proposed bonus pool. Chancellor Alistair Darling has yet to receive a formal presentation about the proposals, which he can veto. He has already said that bonuses cannot be paid in cash to anyone earning more than £39,000, which would affect most of the workforce in the investment bank.

RBS, which a year ago announced the biggest loss in British corporate history, is on Thursday expected to show that its losses have narrowed.

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Banks Told to Comply on Bonuses or Lose UK Banking Licences in Shock FSA Ultimatum

'In an extraordinary ultimatum that has shocked some of the City's biggest companies, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) told bank bosses that 60pc of all pay must be deferred, with no exceptions, even for those whose contracts conflicting with the edict.

Many of the global players have in recent weeks made representations to the City watchdog, in particular about pre-existing employment contracts that guarantee bonuses over a year or more. But their appeals have been met with the FSA's toughest yet response.'

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Bonus Time as Banks Pay Out £40 Billion

The world's biggest investment banks are expected to pay out more than $65bn (£40bn) in salaries and bonuses in the next two weeks, reinforcing the view that it is business as usual on Wall Street and in the City barely a year since the taxpayer bailout of the banking system.'

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Shareholders Demand Goldman Bonuses

Goldman Sachs has had to defend itself from angry taxpayers, regulators, the government – and now its own shareholders.

Some of the US investment bank's largest investors are furious about the New York-based firm paying record bonuses to its staff – bonuses are estimated to be $717,000 (£435,000) each for 2009, the biggest payout in the firm's 140 years.

Investors claim that now profits are back, rewards should go first to shareholders because they suffered the cost of the credit crunch more than anybody else.'

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Royal Bank of Scotland to Give Huge Bonuses

RBS Staff Lining up for their 2009 bonuses

THE state-owned Royal Bank of Scotland is planning to hand out record bonuses of up to £5m each in a snub to struggling taxpayers.

The average employee in its high-risk investment banking arm is likely to take home £240,000, with the top 20 staff in line for payments of between £1m and £5m.

The payouts by the investment banking division — from a total pay and bonus pot of £4 billion — would top the deals awarded at the peak of the financial boom in 2007 and are 66% higher than those paid last year.

RBS, then headed by Sir Fred Goodwin, had to be rescued from collapse by the Treasury last October with an initial injection of £20 billion. The taxpayer now has a 70% stake in the bank.

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Goldman Sachs Set to Announce Record $23Billion Bonus Pot

Bankers' pay and bonuses is set to spark more anger this week after it was revealed that U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs is set to pay out a record $23 billion to its employees.

Bumper third-quarter profits from the Wall Street giant last week should confirm that the average Goldman employee - including the 5,500 that work at its plush European HQ in Fleet Street - is on course to pocket around £500,000 for this year.

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Just wake the fuck up!!!

London G20 Meeting Rejects Plan to Cap Bankers' Bonuses

Bankers blamed for the global financial crisis will see their pay packages limited under a blueprint for steering the international economy towards recovery, it emerged yesterday.

But finance ministers from both rich and developing countries failed to agree a controversial French-German plan to impose a cap on the amount financial sector workers can receive in bonus payments in future.

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Morgan Stanley Sets Aside 72% of Revenue to Pay Bonuses

Morgan Stanley is setting aside a huge sum to pay out bonuses despite posting its third consecutive quarterly loss and admitting it is disappointed with key departments.

The US bank's latest results show it is allocating $3.9bn (£2.36bn) for paying out to staff, 72% of its net revenues. That dwarfs the percentage of revenue set aside by arch rival Goldman Sachs, where workers are on track for large bonuses after record results last week.

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Call for a 90% Tax on Banker Bonuses

Bankers should pay 90 per cent tax on massive bonuses, a group of MPs said yesterday.
The call came at a timely moment as it appeared that City banks are again distributing huge pay and perks.
Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs is expected to confirm today that it will pay an average of almost £400,000 in salary and bonuses to each of its 5,500 Londonbased staff.

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Goldman Sachs to Make Record Bonus Payout

Staff at Goldman Sachs staff can look forward to the biggest bonus payouts in the firm's 140-year history after a spectacular first half of the year, sparking concern that the big investment banks which survived the credit crunch will derail financial regulation reforms.

A lack of competition and a surge in revenues from trading foreign currency, bonds and fixed-income products has sent profits at Goldman Sachs soaring, according to insiders at the firm.

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Geithner Rejects Limits On Bailed out Bankers Pay

Timothy Geithner, US treasury secretary, said on Monday he opposes caps on executive pay in companies receiving bailouts from the federal government under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

Geithner, speaking at a live broadcast interview hosted by Newsweek, made a number of notable remarks, including the claim that the economy has “clearly stabilized” despite the daily growth of unemployment and other indices of social distress. However, his comments on executive compensation stood out most of all.

Geithner, who said he received a “generous salary appropriate for a public servant,” was asked if “it would be a reasonable proposal that companies receiving TARP money should [have their executive pay] capped at what the secretary of the treasury makes?"

“No, I don't think so.” Geithner replied. “I don't think our government should set caps on compensation.”

Well aware of the popular hostility towards the banking executives, Geithner attempted to qualify his statement, adding, “What I think we need to do is set in place some broad constraints on the incentives compensation systems created.”

“We can bring about broader reforms... that will make it less likely that people will get paid to take large amounts of short-term risk at the expense of their firms and at the expense of the system as a whole.”

The only such “reform” mentioned by Geithner was his proposal that “companies submit to shareholders their broader compensation packages.” Such a proposal is ridiculous. Shareholder votes are, of course themselves monopolized by multimillionaires and billionaires, who are perfectly happy to let their colleagues rake in tens of millions of dollars in compensation every year, knowing full well that they will receive the same treatment.

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