Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein Collects $68 Million Bonus

It has not been a good year for many of the big firms on Wall Street.

However, this is not the case for Goldman Sachs, as they have somehow managed to deftly avoid all of the pitfalls that the other firms have fallen into over the past year.

Goldman Sachs has rewarded their CEO with a massive year-end bonus to the tune of $68 million dollars. This is the biggest bonus that has ever been given out to a Wall Street executive, and is a combination of $26.8 million in cash and $41.1 million in restricted stock and stock options. Last year Blankfein was awarded a $54 million dollar bonus.

Many of the other top Wall Street firms passed on accepting any year end bonuses which should tell you just how good of a year that Goldman Sachs had in relation to its competition.

Goldman was helped in large part by two major factors: mergers and acquisitions in Q1 and Q2 of '07, and aggressive short-selling of subprime credit that netted the firm billions in profits. The fact that Goldman actually made money on the subprime meltdown is the biggest reason why they have managed to badly outperform their rivals.

These bonuses are great marketing on the part of Goldman as well, especially as it relates to attracting new talent. If you were at the top of your class and looking for a firm to work at, wouldn't you choose the firm that always seems to be doling out record bonuses? Goldman is basically saying "Come and work for us and you too will have a chance to earn billions per year in bonuses." Works for me.

Filed under: Stock Market Scandals