Report: Big bonuses at bailed-out banks

NEW YORK — Citigroup Inc., one of the biggest recipients of government bailout money, gave employees $5.33 billion in bonuses for 2008, New York’s attorney general said Thursday in a report detailing the payouts by nine big banks.

The report from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office focused on 2008 bonuses paid to the initial nine banks that received loans under the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program last fall. Mr. Cuomo has joined other government officials in criticizing the banks for paying out big bonuses while accepting taxpayer money.

Citigroup, which is now one-third owned by the government as a result of the bailout, gave 738 of its employees bonuses of at least $1 million, even after it lost $18.7 billion during the year, Mr. Cuomo’s office said.

The New York-based bank received $45 billion in government money and guarantees to protect it against hundreds of billions of dollars on potential losses from risky investments.

“There is no clear rhyme or reason to the way banks compensate and reward their employees,” Mr. Cuomo said in the report, noting that banks have not in recent years actually tied pay to performance as they claim when describing their compensation programs. Mr. Cuomo added that when banks’ performance deteriorated significantly, “they were bailed out by taxpayers and their employees were still paid well.”

Bank of America Corp., which also received $45 billion in TARP money, paid $3.3 billion in bonuses, with 172 employees receiving at least $1 million. Merrill Lynch, which Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America acquired during the credit crisis, paid out $3.6 billion.

Bank of America earned $2.56 billion in 2008, while Merrill lost $30.48 billion. Mr. Cuomo’s office said Merrill Lynch doled out 696 bonuses of at least $1 million for 2008.

Bank of America has been criticized sharply for its acquisition of Merrill Lynch because of mounting losses at the Wall Street bank and the size of bonuses Merrill paid its employees. Of the $45 billion in bailout funds Bank of America received, $20 billion was to support the acquisition of Merrill. Neither Bank of America nor Citigroup has repaid its TARP loans.

A Bank of America spokesman declined to comment on the report. A spokesman for Citigroup did not return repeated calls for comment.

Banks have said they needed to pay their top performing employees to prevent them from defecting to competitors. Companies that accepted TARP money have faced intense government scrutiny and now must comply with restrictions on compensation, including bonuses.

Because of those restrictions, some banks began shifting how they pay their workers. In June, Citigroup said it would rebalance how it pays employees by reducing bonuses for some and instead giving them larger salaries. The change does not effect total pay, just the mix in compensation.

President Obama last month named Kenneth Feinberg to oversee compensation given to the 100 highest-paid employees at banks and other firms that received the largest government bailouts, including Citigroup and Bank of America.

However, his oversight does not include reviewing bonus payments tied to 2008. He only can review plans starting with 2009 compensation. Companies have until Aug. 13 to submit compensation plans to Mr. Feinberg.

Asked about the attorney general’s report, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said he had not seen it.

“I think the president continues to believe that the American people don’t begrudge people making money for what they do as long as … we’re not basically incentivizing wild risk-taking that somebody else picks up the tab for,” Mr. Gibbs said.

Story Continues →