JPMorgan’s Dimon Gets $23 Million for 2011 and Bragging Rights
Jamie Dimon is still Wall Street’s top dog.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) disclosed on Wednesday afternoon that it paid its CEO $23 million in 2011. That was the same as last year, but it handily made Dimon, for the second year in a row, the best paid CEO in banking in 2011 - a year in which many other top financial executives saw their pay cut. Dimon’s pay for instance, was more than double rival Goldman Sachs (GS) CEO Lloyd Blankfein, whose pay likely dropped to $9 million for 2011, down nearly $4 million from the year before. The only CEO who was even close to Dimon was Wells Fargo’s (WFC) John Stumpf, who got a total pay package of just under $20 million.
Dimon received $6 million of his $23 million in salary or cash bonus. The rest was paid in restricted stock and options, the first portion of which will start to vest in early 2014. And while Dimon was also the only JPMorgan executive who managed to avoid a pay cut in 2011, the pay of the other executives make it clear that big paydays are far from over on Wall Street. JPMorgan’s investment banking chief James Staley, for instance, got paid $16 million for last year, including a $5.3 million cash bonus. JPMorgan’s CFO Douglas Braunstein saw the biggest drop in pay to $9.5 million for 2011, down $3 million from the year before.
There is clearly reason Dimon should be rewarded. The bank earned nearly $19 billion last year, up nearly 10% from the year. And while the company’s shares fell last year, the company’s stock dropped far less than rivals. In Dimon’s annual letter to shareholders, which was also released on Wednesday night, Dimon said that he was happy with the firm’s performance. But he also said that he believed recently imposed banking regulations like Dodd-Frank was holding back JPMorgan and other banks’ ability to lend. Dimon quipped that when the history of the recovery from the financial crisis is written it will be titled “It Could Have Been Much Better.” He seemed to lay most of the blame for that on Washington.