Boom times are back on Wall Street as some Goldman partners mint $15 million pay packages
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Bonus season has arrived on Wall Street, and the bankers who produced record revenue last year for firms including Goldman Sachs are reaping the rewards.
Goldman and JPMorgan Chase informed investment bankers and traders of their pay packages this week, part of an annual ritual that can leave workers elated — or deflated — as they learn how much their 2021 efforts were valued.
The compensation pool for Goldman's investment bankers jumped 40% to 50%, according to people with knowledge of the situation. At rival JPMorgan, the bonus pool for that category rose 30% to 40%, other people with knowledge said, confirming a Bloomberg report.
«I know bankers who are exceptionally happy, they generally did the best this year as opposed to traders,» said David McCormack, head of finance recruitment firm DMC Partners. «This is the highest compensation many people have seen in the last decade.»
Pay is up everywhere you look on Wall Street, from first-year bankers to partners and top executives, after a two-year boom in mergers and markets activity sparked by the Federal Reserve's response to the coronavirus pandemic. Wage inflation was a key theme this past week as banks disclosed fourth-quarter results, with analysts fretting that rising expenses will eat into profits.
The rise in bank's bonus pools tracks their results for 2021. For instance, at Goldman, investment banking revenue jumped 58% from the previous year to $14.9 billion on high levels of completed mergers and initial public offerings. JPMorgan said last week that its 2021 investment banking fees climbed 39% to $13.2 billion.
The rise in compensation pools doesn't tell the full story. Managers use the pools to dole out bonuses to individual employees, and
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