Let Us Pay Out Bonuses, Citi Begs Geithner

Feinberg beefs up base base to help firms retain talent

(NEWSER) - Base pay will increase for the majority of top execs in the finance and auto firms supervised by federal pay czar Kenneth Feinberg. Salaries are being bumped up—by hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases—as bonuses and other perks are slashed. Despite the salary hikes, all 136 execs at the seven firms overseen by Feinberg will end up making much less than last year. More»

(NEWSER) - The Obama administration intends to push for “very, very substantial change,” in the way Wall Street pays executives, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner tells Bloomberg. “I don’t think we can go back to the way it was,” he said, arguing that the current big-bonus status quo encourages too much risk-taking. The changes will be part of the administration’s larger regulatory overhaul. More»

Planned rules may apply to banks that weren't bailed out

(NEWSER) - The Obama administration has begun an ambitious project to overhaul compensation practices across the financial sector, including at firms that received no bailout, reports the Wall Street Journal. The government may use the powers of the Fed or the SEC, as well as congressional legislation, to prevent banks from rewarding damaging practices, such as making dangerous loans or offering inaccurate risk ratings. More»

President says he, Geithner will press executives on issue

(NEWSER) - President Obama denounced huge bonuses to Wall Street executives as “the height of irresponsibility” given the country’s economic hardship, the AP reports. Responding to news that financial firms paid out $18 billion in bonuses last year, Obama described the firms’ actions as “shameful” and vowed that he and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will meet with Wall Street CEOs to make the point in person. More»

COO, CFO, and general counsel stuck around to help trustee

(NEWSER) - MF Global may have gone down in a ball of flames, but its chief operating officer, chief financial officer, and general counsel are all likely to get six-figure performance-based bonuses anyway, the Wall Street Journal reports. All three execs stuck around after the crash to help trustee Louis Freeh deal with the firm's assets and pay creditors, and he's expected to ask a bankruptcy-court judge to approve bonuses for them and up to 20 other MF Global employees who stayed on. More»