The General Director of the U.S. bank Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, along with other top executives of the bank, will receive next month bonus shares worth 111.3 million dollars, accounting for deferred payments for the results achieved in 2007 and 2009.
On the basis of documents submitted by Goldman Sachs to Securities and Exchange Commission, Blankfein would receive in January 2011 a bonus worth about 24.3 million dollars, based on the price of shares registered at the closing of the meeting Goldman Sachs on 14 December. In turn, President Gary D. Cohn he would also receive a bonus of 24 million dollars.
These payments, equivalent to a part of the bonuses worth 67.9 million dollars paid by Blankfein and the 66.9 million dollars Gary D. Cohn for 2007, reflects a decrease of approximately 24% of the value of Goldman Sachs’ shares, down from $218.86 per share recorded in 2007 when granting bonuses.
After one year since the bonuses for 2007 were approved, Goldman Sachs lent 10 billion dollars from the U.S. government, turned into a commercial bank, and this year paid 550 million dollars to escape fraud charges linked to a series of mortgage bonds that the company has sold in 2007.
With the financial crisis of 2008 led to the failure of competitors as like Lehman Brothers Holdings and forced governments to provide unprecedented support for some financial institutions, the regulators have supported banks to reward top employees with bonuses and redeem shares if the trading strategies that have proved unwise. Blankfein and Cohn did not receive any bonuses in 2008 and in 2009 received only a limited number of shares.