[Omah]

Originally Posted by Livia

I hope no one on here ever finds out about the bonuses awarded to the upper echelons of banks like Goldman Sachs... you'll all have a conniption fit.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...y-bonuses-rise

Goldman Sachs pay and bonuses rise to £250,000 each

Bank has set aside $13bn to cover the salaries, bonuses and perks for staff worldwide – a rise of more than $30,000 a head on 2011

Wednesday 16 January 2013 14.08 GMT

Goldman Sachs risked stoking the row over City pay on Wednesday by revealing its bankers were paid an average of $400,000 (£250,000) each last year, a rise of more than $30,000 a head on 2011.

Goldman's annual financial results show the bank has set aside $13bn to cover the salaries, bonuses and perks for the 32,400 it employs around the world. Details of the payroll come just a day after the bank was forced to back down from plans to defer bonuses until April so that its highly paid staff could avoid the 50% tax rate.

The size of the bill to pay staff is 6% higher than a year ago. However, the average individual payouts to staff are higher as the number of employees has fallen by 3%.

Staff will find out in the coming days what their bonuses for 2012 will be. Some of them will be expecting to receive millions of pounds .

The bank stressed that its ratio of compensation (pay) to net revenues (income) – a closely watched measure of a banks' generosity towards its staff – was the second lowest ever at 37.9%, compared with 42.4% for 2011.

Revenues were higher across most of the business with the exception of equities. Investment banking revenues were up 13% to $5bn for 2012, although corporate advisory revenues were flat at $2bn.

The firm, the highest profile of the Wall Street banks, issued its figures just hours before JP Morgan revealed its chief executive Jamie Dimon had taken a 50% cut in his pay to $11.5m from $23m in the wake of the London Whale trading incident, which cost the bank $6bn.

Small potatoes .....