New Goldman Sachs Documents Attempts to Justify Investment Bank's Mammoth Executive Pay and Bonus Payouts
With its pay practices under such enormous scrutiny in the TARP Age, Goldman
Sachs has put the effort into compiling a
14-page document for investors in order to clarify (or, more to the point, justify)
the huge pay levels it is embracing. Since Goldman has been on the receiving end of $10
billion in government aid — and with large end-of-year revenues seen as justification for
big bonuses — the investment bank is scrambling to gain support for its logic.
In the document, Goldman attempts to justify its pay levels by saying it operates "in
a human capital driven industry where we compete for the best talent available globally".
It then goes on to allege that "compensation for institutional financial services companies
is the equivalent of other industries," the
UK's Telegraph reports. In a series of complex charts and tables, the bank essentially
informs shareholders that it has to pay for talent, but that it does so at levels which are
some of the lowest in the industry.
A number of investors have however lodged resolutions for next year's annual general meeting,
including a say-on-pay resolution, which is likely to gain considerable support, reports Telegraph U.S.
business editor James Quinn. A Goldman spokesman said: "We have a very
open dialogue with our shareholders and have talked about compensation in the past. We haven't
made the sort of presentation that you've seen on our website before, however," the story
reports.
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