Goldman Sachs Group Inc CEO Lloyd Blankfein has reaped a US$6.1 million gain by cashing in more than 90,000 stock options before they expired in November.
Blankfein realized the windfall on Wednesday by exercising his right to buy 90,681 Goldman shares at US$82.875, according to a Friday regulatory filing. He then sold the stock at prices ranging between US$149.49 and US$152.
Goldman shares closed on Friday at US$148.08. That’s a 79 percent increase from the stock’s price in November 2000 when Blankfein received the options.
Goldman is considered the leading Wall Street bank, usually outdistancing its rivals with its trading and investment banking operations. The company beat second-quarter earnings forecasts, although its net income fell 83 percent due to the US$550 billion it paid to settle civil fraud charges brought by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and a US$600 million charge for a British employee bonus tax.
Goldman has been sharply criticized for its high compensation levels after it accepted a US$10 billion government bailout during the financial crisis in 2008. It also received US$13 billion from insurer American International Group Inc after the government bailed that company out.
Two other top Goldman executives also profited from expiring options. Gary Cohn, Goldman’s president, made US$4.9 million by exercising more than 73,600 options and David Viniar, the bank’s chief financial officer, made US$4.5 million on more than 67,300 options.
According to previous filings with the SEC, Blankfein earned US$862,657 last year, down from US$42.9 million in 2008.
His pay for last year included salary and perks. He received no grants of stock awards or options last year, while his compensation from 2008 included stock compensation valued at US$42.1 million.
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it is building nine new advanced wafer manufacturing and packaging factories this year, accelerating its expansion amid strong demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The chipmaker built on average five factories per year from 2021 to last year and three from 2017 to 2020, TSMC vice president of advanced technology and mask engineering T.S. Chang (張宗生) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “We are quickening our pace even faster in 2025. We plan to build nine new factories, including eight wafer fabrication plants and one advanced
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s
RSS