Who says the era of giant paychecks is over? The Wall Street Journal reports that with business returning to Wall Street, executive compensation will be making a similar comeback. Goldman Sachs, for example, is set to pay out $20 billion this year—about $700,000 per employee or double last year's $363,000 average. Of course, the big payouts depend on continued market improvement and on what field an executive is in. Junk-bond trading is improving, and so is compensation in that area, although asset-backed security paychecks are iffy because that market remains frozen. The real trick is making salaries competitive while managing public perception. In order to avoid a public reprimand, at least one company has discussed compensation with the Obama administration, while others are changing their salary/bonus ratio and adding stock to packages along with "clawback" provisions that tie paychecks to long-term performance of the firm.
Read it at The Wall Street Journal
