JPMorgan boss won’t take cash, but is still getting paid
JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon received a bonus of about $17 million in restricted stock and options for 2009, Bloomberg reported.
The CEO, who was paid $1 million in salary and didn’t take a cash or stock bonus in 2008, steered his firm to a profit during each quarter of the financial crisis.
According to a regulatory filing today, the bonus included $8.5 million in restricted stock and 563,562 options. A JPMorgan spokesman said Dimon, 53, won’t take a cash bonus this year.
In 2007, according to the company’s proxy statement, Dimon was paid $27.8 million in cash, stock and options.
Dimon, defending his pay practices at a Jan. 13 hearing in Washington of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, said the majority of senior executives’ compensation is in the form of stock, and they are required to hold 75 percent of equity awards they are granted.
In 2009, JPMorgan, the second-largest U.S. bank, allocated $9.3 billion for compensation and benefits for investment-bank employees, enough to pay each worker in that unit $378,600.
The payout compares with Morgan Stanley’s $14.4 billion in compensation and benefits, or $235,193 for each employee, in 2009. New York-based Morgan Stanley, the world’s biggest brokerage, added 15,000 people in 2009.
Individual pay varies widely at investment banks, with lower-level employees often earning bonuses of less than $100,000. According to a report by New York-based Options Group, a pay consultant, global division leaders in the industry may receive recompense of more than $10 million.
In July, JPMorgan said that 1,144 employees received a bonus of more than $1 million in 2008.
A company spokesman said that company’s board will adopt a “say-on-pay” measure at the next shareholders meeting.