Goldman Sachs CEO Takes Home $22.6M In 2015, His First Pay Cut In Four Years

Goldman Sachs Group Inc paid CEO Lloyd Blankfein $22.6 million for 2015, his first pay cut in four years, a regulatory filing showed Friday. Executive salaries were trimmed by 4 percent to 5 percent from the previous year due to “challenging financial markets” and increased costs related to regulatory requirements, the bank said.

Blankfein’s salary included stock awards of $13.9 million and a bonus of $6.3 million. The CEO, who took home $24 million in 2014, will be eligible to receive a total of $7 million based on the bank's performance over the next eight years as part of Goldman's long-term performance incentive plan, the filing said.

Friday’s filing showed Goldman paid CFO Harvey Schwartz and Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn a total compensation of $21 million each.

JPMorgan Chase & Co, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, said Thursday that it had raised CEO Jamie Dimon's 2015 pay package to $27 million, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman's compensation was dropped to $22.1 million from $23.3 million last week while Wells Fargo & Co. paid CEO John Stumpf $19.3 million in compensation for 2015, unchanged from the previous year.

Shares of Goldman Sachs declined 7.29 percent in 2015, making it the second worst performer among the big U.S. banks after Morgan Stanley, which fell 18 percent in the same period, Reuters reported.

Goldman Sachs stock has slumped more than 13 percent this year.

According to Friday’s announcement, the pay cuts had factored in a payment of over $5 billion to settle U.S. regulators' claims that Goldman had misled investors of mortgage bonds sold between 2005 and 2007.