Goldman CEO's salary tripled to $2 million

Goldman Sachs Group more than tripled Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein's salary to $2 million for this year and paid him restricted stock currently worth $12.6 million, according to regulatory filings.

The bank, which has come under fire for its pay practices, also raised the salaries of Chief Financial Officer David Viniar and Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn to $1.85 million, the filing said. All three executives previously earned a base salary of $600,000, according to filings.

Blankfein will also receive 78,111 restricted stock units, worth $12.6 million by the share price on Friday. The units will convert to stock over the next three years but Blankfein will not be able to sell them until January 2016, according to a filing.

The bank paid Blankfein an all-stock bonus valued at $8.9 million for 2009, when Goldman posted a record annual profit.

Goldman Sachs earlier this month reported a full-year profit of $8.35 billion, but its shares were down 0.4 percent or 68 cents in 2010. The shares are down almost four percent so far this year.

Banks including Goldman Sachs slashed bonus payments during the financial crisis, when they faced public outrage over government bailouts.

RAISES ALL ROUND

Citigroup Inc Chief Executive Vikram Pandit, who had pledged to take a $1 salary until the bank returned to sustained profitability, last week got a $1,749,999 raise just days after the bank reported its first full-year profit since 2007. [ID:nN21282014]

And earlier that Friday, Morgan Stanley gave CEO James Gorman an incentives package worth a potential $7.4 million.

On the same day, CIT Group awarded Chief Executive John Thain -- the former CEO of Merrill Lynch -- several million dollars of incentives.

(Reporting by Elinor Comlay. Editing by Robert MacMillan, Bernard Orr)