Filed under: Employees, Scandals, Goldman Sachs Group (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS)

To a Wall Street compensation neophyte, a “bonus” would seem to be something paid in the event of performance beyond that which is expected. A reader of Dictionary.com might reach a similar conclusion:

bo·nus /ˈboʊnəs/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[boh-nuhs] noun, plural -nus·es.

1. something given or paid over and above what is due.
2. a sum of money granted or given to an employee, a returned soldier, etc., in addition to regular pay, usually in appreciation for work done, length of service, accumulated favors, etc.

So in light of the multi-billion subprime losses that nearly every major Wall Street firm is taking, how can it be that bonuses at Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) soared 18% year over year after a $9.4 billion writedown on bad mortgages? The stock has lost about a third of its value in the past few months, raising questions about the value the company has provided to shareholders.

You almost have to stand in awe of CFO Colm Kelleher’s explanation: “If you were to normalize our business … you would see we had a record year across the whole enterprise”. (Emphasis added)

Continue reading Wall Street ‘bonuses’ rise 14% in face of huge write-downs

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

This entry was posted on Friday, December 21st, 2007 at 4:11 pm and is filed under Stocks Money News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.