Goldman Sachs gave CEO David Solomon a 20% raise to a head-spinning $27.5 million in assets and cash for his work last year, the company revealed.
The news comes as the Trump administration weighs massive industry bailouts amid the coronavirus crisis — and triggers memories of the Wall Street bailout, which included $10 billion for Goldman Sachs.
Solomon’s compensation for 2019 includes $2 million in salary, more than $15 million in stock and a $7.7 million cash bonus, the company reported Friday.
Former company CEO Lloyd Blankfein took in a record $41 million in compensation in 2008. (Blankfein said last month that he might vote for Donald Trump if Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) became the Democratic presidential nominee.) Solomon is the second-highest-paid CEO in company history.
Bonuses for company employees shrank during the same period, and Goldman Sachs’ profits fell to a four-year low, reports The Wall Street Journal. The company also set aside $1.1 billion for a hoped-for settlement with U.S. regulators over the role it played in a Malaysian corruption scandal.
Goldman Sachs collected $10 billion from U.S. taxpayers as part of the $700 billion bailout of the banking industry in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis — created by banks and investment companies.
Americans are still stewed about that, according to Dennis Kelleher, the president of the nonprofit Better Markets, which advocates for more regulation in the finance industry. “There is still a strong view in this country that in 2008, Wall Street got bailed out and Main Street got the bill,” he told The New York Times.
Democrats are insisting now that any business getting federal financial help for the coronavirus crisis include restrictions on stock buybacks and executive compensation — and required provisions for worker support.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) warned: “We’re not doing no-strings-attached bailouts that enrich shareholders or pay CEO bonuses. Period.”