No one can argue that banking can’t be a profitable business. And when it’s done well, it can be very profitable. To that end, the men (and it’s almost always men, isn’t it?) who lead those banks usually do quite well for themselves.
For the CEOs of the nation’s largest banks, the financial benefits of their position can be…well, how to put this…spectaculartastic? Stupenderful? Astoundalous? Something like that.
In fact, the financial benefits of being a bank CEO have only gotten better in the last few years, to the tune of a 32% increase from 2009-2013.
So just how good is it to be the CEO of a massive bank? One could say it makes their personal bank accounts too big to fail.
Need proof of that? Here’s the list of the top ten highest paid bank CEOs for 2013.
1. Wells Fargo’s John Stumpf – $19,320,409
2. Capital One’s Richard Fairbank – $18,294,525
3. Citigroup’s Michael Corbat – $17,558,119
4. FirstMerit’s Paul Greig – $16,411,240
5. State Street’s Joseph Hooley – $15,841,234
6. Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan – $13,139,357
7. BB&T’s Kelly King – $11,993,625
8. PacWest’s Matthew Wagner – $11,895,271
9. JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon – $11,791,833
10. US Bancorp’s Richard Davis – $10,793,663
And how did each of those well-paid gentlemen reach those hefty paychecks. Take a look at the chart below, provided by SNL Financial, who also provided the data. It shows the breakdown of the base salary, bonus, option awards, stock awards, and other forms of compensation that each CEO received.
Of note in the chart is the $0 that Richard Fairbank receives as his base salary. He more than makes up for it with a bonus of $2.8 million, option awards of nearly $4.4 million and stock awards of almost $11 million.
According to SNL’s report, JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon was among the three highest paid CEOs in 2010, 2011 and 2012, but placed ninth in 2013. SNL notes that Dimon did not receive a bonus or stock options in 2013, which dropped his pay by nearly $7 million from 2012 to 2013.
But don’t cry for Dimon. Aftter all, he did make almost $12 million last year. Nice work if you can get it, right? All in all, the top ten CEOs earned more than $147 million in 2013. As Mel Brooks once said, it’s good to be the king.
