You're now on the archive server. Commenting has been disabled.

Goldman Full Year Compensation Per Employee: $498,153, Firm Reports Negative Compensation Expense In Q4

Tyler Durden's picture




Goldman reported a blow out EPS number today on a minor miss to revenue: this was mostly due to a substantial cut to employee compensation accrual, which went down from an annualized accrual of $20 billion previously to $16.193 billion for FYE 2009. In fact in Q4, Goldman reported a negative expense to compensation and benefits of ($519) million compared to $5.351 billion in Q3. Did Rahm have some tete-a-tetes with Lloyd recently? With 32,500 FTE, per employee compensation was $498,153. We will provide bonus numbers for some key individuals in the days ahead.

From the filing:

Compensation and benefits expenses were $16.19 billion for the year and were 35.8% of net revenues. [This is materially lower from the recent historical average of 46.7%] This ratio of compensation and benefits to net revenues was down from 48% for 2008 and represented the firm's lowest annual ratio of compensation and benefits to net revenues. In the fourth quarter, compensation was reduced by $500 million to fund a charitable contribution to Goldman Sachs Gives, which is reflected in the negative compensation and benefits expenses of $519 million for the quarter.

Another relevant data point: VaR for Q4 dropped from $208 million to $181 million, mostly due to a decline in interest rate VaR and an increased Diversification Effect from (87) to (103), which we still are curious as to how this is calculated, while equity prices VaR surprisingly increased from $51 in the year ago and $74 in the quarter ago to $89. The same thing with commodity prices which is now at the high side of the channel, coming in at $38. Is Goldman becoming too complacent with its expectation that there will be no volatility in the interest rate market? With Goldman expecting a substantial tightening in 10 years, even as Morgan Stanley sees a dramatic increase in 10Y yields, what happens if Goldman is right and MS is wrong? We will have much more to say on long bond rates later today. The answer may shock you.

 




Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.
Thu, 01/21/2010 - 10:42 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Thu, 01/21/2010 - 10:45 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Thu, 01/21/2010 - 11:01 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Thu, 01/21/2010 - 11:22 | Link to Comment DavidC
DavidC's picture

Anybody remember what GS's tax bill was, and its percentage of revenue?

DavidC

Thu, 01/21/2010 - 11:25 | Link to Comment Arco
Arco's picture

What difference would that make? You typically pay taxes on your earnings, not your revenue...

Thu, 01/21/2010 - 11:35 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 12/15/2010 - 06:21 | Link to Comment Karston1234
Karston1234's picture

Information is truly extraordinary, I am very interested to read this post..education degree | fire science degree | law degree

Thu, 01/21/2010 - 11:22 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Thu, 01/21/2010 - 11:44 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 12/15/2010 - 06:23 | Link to Comment Karston1234
Karston1234's picture

Regardless of what you think of huge bonuses and profit...this just doesn't pass the smell test.management degree | nursing degree

Thu, 01/21/2010 - 11:48 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Thu, 01/21/2010 - 13:01 | Link to Comment CB
CB's picture

oh nos! some GS secretary can't buy her birkin bag this year.

Thu, 01/21/2010 - 13:26 | Link to Comment curbyourrisk
curbyourrisk's picture

New rule....Bonus payout ratio per revenue figure should never exceed the taxrate per revenue.

What was their taxes paid per revenue????  That is the CAP rate for their bonus payout.

 

All in favor?

Sun, 06/05/2011 - 07:54 | Link to Comment sun1
sun1's picture

I have to admit that I have never heard about this information I have noticed many new facts for me. Thanks a lot for sharing this useful and attractive information and I will be waiting for other interesting posts from you in the nearest future.keep it up. car insurance

Mon, 06/20/2011 - 14:50 | Link to Comment sun
sun's picture

You got a really useful blog I have been here reading for about an hour. I am a newbie and your success is very much an inspiration for me Dallas IT Support

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!