Goldman Sachs announced record earnings today: According to the NY Times, "The bank said that for 2009, it earned a profit of $13.4 billion on revenue of $45.2 billion," and 4th quarter earnings of $8.20/share, beating estimates of $5.20/share. But the bigger news may be the fact that the bank started to slash its bonus pool.
For 2009, Goldman Sachs doled out $16 billion in bonuses, which the Times says "was below the record year of 2007, when it devoted $20.2 billion to bonuses and salaries" and "represented 35.8 percent of revenues, down from 48 percent in 2008, and its lowest ratio since it became a public company...Nevertheless, on average, each Goldman employee is set to receive around $498,000 in bonus and compensation for 2009, an amount that could still incense the bank’s critics, given the economic pain elsewhere in the country." Well, perhaps Goldman's charitable donations will mollify the mob.
Of course, reducing executive compensation is partly what helped drive record earnings for the bank during this fourth quarter. An analyst tells Bloomberg News, "They got the message that politically they can’t be paying out close to 50 percent of revenues anymore, at least for the time being."
