Jamie Dimon, chief executive and chairman of Wall Street investment giant JPMorgan Chase, reaped a bonus of about US$16 million in shares and options on shares last year, a bank spokesman said Friday.
“All of his bonus is in deferred equity, there is no cash,” spokesman Joe Evangelisti said.
News about Dimon’s hefty bonus comes amid a public furor over big bonuses that some blame for the excessive risk taking that fueled the global financial crisis.
Goldman Sachs chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein was also awarded a US$9 million bonus for last year, but in restricted stock that he must hold for five years, the company said.
The 58,381 in shares, which will convert into Goldman’s common stock in thirds over the next three years, is a fraction of the figures rumored in the media in recent weeks.
The compensation was made under a new policy aimed at ending a furor over the company’s soaring compensation, the company disclosed on Friday.
Last year, JPMorgan Chase repaid the US Treasury for an injection of US$25 billion in capital under the taxpayer-funded Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) set up to prevent the collapse of the financial system.
The TARP repayment freed the bank from government-imposed compensation restrictions.
Dimon led JPMorgan Chase, the second-largest US bank by assets, to huge profits last year as the financial sector recovered, benefiting from a rebound in equities.
The New York-based financial giant last month said it had quadrupled its fourth-quarter net earnings to US$3.27 billion and doubled its profits for the full year to US$11.7 billion.
Goldman Sachs, which along with JPMorgan Chase apparently best survived the financial crisis, posted huge profits last year, but moved to deflect criticism about bonuses to be paid from US$16 billion reserved for compensation.
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