Goldman Sachs Executives to Receive $500 Million in Special Stock Awards, CEO to Get $100 Million

U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs is awarding a total of $500 million, exceeding 670 billion won, in special stock compensation to its top executives.

Bloomberg reported this on the 8th (local time), citing regulatory filings and people familiar with the matter.

This compensation is expected to be one of the largest special payout packages in Goldman Sachs history.

The compensation is stock-based and tied to stock price performance, with the total amount calculated based on current stock prices.

About 20 executives are known to be eligible for the awards, averaging roughly $25 million per person, or about 33.5 billion won in Korean currency.

Chief Executive Officer David Solomon is expected to receive the largest share, totaling $100 million, or more than 134 billion won.

The awards stem from a long-term performance-based compensation plan introduced by Goldman Sachs in October 2021, and the final amounts will be finalized at the end of this month as a five-year performance evaluation period concludes.

This program links executive pay to the company's long-term stock price performance.

At the time, driven by a boom in mergers and acquisitions and a craze for special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), financial firms successively introduced special performance compensation programs for executives, and Goldman Sachs was one of them.

Half of the compensation is determined by whether Goldman Sachs' stock price reaches a predetermined target level, while the remaining half is linked to relative performance compared with six competitors.

Goldman Sachs' stock price significantly exceeded the threshold required for maximum payout.

Over the past five years, the total return on Goldman Sachs stock, including reinvested dividends, was about 150%, outperforming all peer competitors in the comparison group of six except for The Bank of New York Mellon (174%).

Jennifer Zuccarelli, a spokesperson for Goldman Sachs, stated that the compensation program aims to align executive pay with long-term performance and retain key talent, adding, "It is no secret that our firm has delivered exceptional performance over the years."

(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.