Goldman Sachs doubled CEO David Solomon’s pay in 2021 to $35 million after the investment back reported record profits last year.
Solomon, 59, received a $35 million pay package for 2021, up from the $17.5 million he earned in 2020 after the Wall Street firm posted significant profits last year.
In 2021 the bank reported a net income of $21.64 billion, compared with $9.46 billion a year earlier and reported a 23% increase in fourth-quarter operating expenses, mainly due to higher compensation and benefits costs, Reuters reported.
David Solomon (pictured) received a $35 million pay package for 2021, up from the $17.5 million he earned in 2020 after the Wall Street firm posted significant profit last year
In 2021 Goldman Sachs reported a net income of $21.64 billion, compared with $9.46 billion a year earlier
Solomon’s total pay for 2021 includes an annual base salary of $2 million and a variable compensation of $33 million, 70% of which is in the form of goal-based stock compensation or restricted stock units.
He is not the only Wall Street CEO who saw a pay raise last year, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman also raked in $35 million and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon earned $34.5 million in 2021.
Solomon’s raise comes after his salary was slashed by $10 million in 2020 after earning $27.5 million the year before.
Solomon’s pay, along with that of Chief Financial Officer Stephen Scherr and Chief Operating Officer John Waldron were reduced because of the company’s involvement in the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal.
Goldman Sachs raised $6.5 billion in three bond sales for the 1Malaysia Development Berhad state fund, between 2012 and 2013. Malaysian and U.S. authorities found in 2015 that $4.5 billion from the fund was siphoned by its leaders and used for a variety of personal, luxury expenses. Goldman Sachs reached a $2.9 billion settlement for its involvement in raising the money.
Despite a record year in 2021, earlier this month Goldman reported a 13 percent dip in profit as trading revenue slumped
When he is not running the Wall Street giant, Solomon performs under the name DJ D-Sol at some of the most elite nightclubs in the world
Goldman Sachs paid out more than $5 billion in fines in the scandal, in which former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak (above) and his cronies looted billions from 1Malaysia Development Berhad, a supposed government investment fund
Despite a record year in 2021, earlier this month Goldman reported a 13 percent dip in profit as trading revenue slumped, the New York Post reported.
Goldman Sachs posted $3.94 billion in profit, or $10.81 per share for the quarter ending Dec. 31- which fell short of the $11.76 analysts predicted.
DAVID SOLOMON: THE GOLDMAN SACHS CEO WITH A DJING SIDE HUSTLE
As well as working as a top Goldman Sachs executive, Solomon spends his nights DJing super clubs all over the world
David Solomon, 59, has served as CEO of Goldman Sachs since October 2018.
The New Yorker has also been chairman of the bank since January 2019.
Prior to this, he was president and chief operating officer from January 2017 to September 2018.
And worked as the joint head of the investment banking division from July 2006 to December 2016.
As well as working as a top Goldman Sachs executive, Solomon spends his nights DJing super clubs all over the world.
The divorced 59-year-old performs under the name DJ D-Sol and has even performed at the MTV Europe Music Awards in London
His side hustle was outed by the New York Times in 2017 amid his campaign to be named Goldman CEO.
Solomon has said he also likes to ride the subway to work, fetch his own coffee in the office, and relaxed the firm’s dress code making suits and ties optional.
In 2020 Solomon’s annual pay fell by $10million, or 36 percent.
It came after the firm clawed back executive pay after it agreed to pay nearly $3billion in fines to the Department of Justice for its role in a Malaysian bribery scandal.
His personal life has been just as tumultuous. According to CNBC, his divorce was finalized in 2018.
And in his second week as CEO, Solomon’s former assistant killed himself after being charged with stealing $1.2 million worth of wine from Solomon’s collection.
As of 2022 Goldman’s shares are down more than 12 percent, which is worse than the market as a whole, which is down about 7.6 percent, the Post reported.
Solomon joined Goldman Sachs in 1999 as a partner and climbed the corporate ladder until becoming its CEO in October 2018 and chairman in January 2019.
Since taking over from Lloyd Blankfein in 2018, Solomon has looked to diversify the bank’s revenue, with more focus on consumer banking, mass-market wealth management and cash management.
In February 2021 Solomon slammed working from home as an ‘aberration’ and said it is not the ‘new normal’ as he revealed the company is not likely to be offering it as a permanent option.
Solomon said he was particularly worried about the incoming class of 3,000 new recruits who he fears won’t get the ‘direct mentorship’ and ‘direct contact’ that they need.
He added that he is a ‘big believer in personal connectivity’ and so foresees that Goldman’s pre-pandemic operating style will return.
‘I am very focused on the fact that I don’t want another class of young people arriving at Goldman Sachs in the summer remotely,’ he told the conference.
‘I don’t think as we get out of the pandemic the overall operating mode of the way a business like ours operates will be vastly different.
The firm had allowed a ‘significant portion’ of employees to shift to working remotely during the pandemic.
The CEO revealed that Goldman Sachs operated throughout 2020 with ‘less than 10% of our people’ on average working from offices throughout the firm’s various global bases.
Goldman Sachs drew public criticism and backlash throughout 2021.
In January, a former intern named Emily shared a YouTube video describing her experience interning there in 2016 as being the ‘internship from hell.’ She called it a ‘traumatic’ and ‘cutthroat’ program that included working from 5:40 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. without having her own desk.
Then, in March, a group of junior bankers made a PowerPoint presentation complaining of conditions like working 100 hours a week. A number of the 13 analysts who made the presentation said that they would quit by the summer if conditions didn’t improve. One claimed that his experience at Goldman was ‘arguably worse’ than his childhood in foster care. The PowerPoint leaked to the media and, days later, Solomon vowed to employees that he would work harder to give them Saturdays off.
Employees said that it only rubs salt in the wound to see Solomon riding the heels of his EDM career and playing opulent gigs in the Hamptons, while they struggle to get a full day off work.
When he is not running the Wall Street giant, Solomon performs under the name DJ D-Sol at some of the most elite nightclubs in the world.