Goldman Sachs to reveal £8.3bn packages... and say pay is down

GOLDMAN Sachs will this week say it paid its staff $12.6billion (£8.3billion) in salary and bonuses for 2014 – or £250,000 for each of its 33,500 workers worldwide, from top bankers to support staff.

Senior bankers will have received multi-million pound figures, provoking fresh controversy about bank pay. But Goldman is likely to insist that remuneration as a share of turnover is falling marginally.

The investment bank may also outline how it is responding to a European ban on bonuses of more than two times salary. But with total payouts set to match last year’s, it is unlikely the cap has cut what senior bankers have received.

Goldman is one of the banks that decided to pay fixed ‘allowances’ to staff in shares, which it says do not count as bonuses. Figures out last month showed that in 2013 Goldman paid its top 120 London bankers £3million each on average. Of that, about £500,000 was salary, £500,000 a cash bonus, with the remaining £2million paid in shares. The bank has 5,500 staff in London. Goldman’s results, due on Friday, are expected to show revenue in 2014 was static at $34billion (£22billion). While mergers and acquisitions, in which Goldman acts as an adviser, were strong, fees for underwriting transactions such as new share issues were weaker, analysts said.

Several banks in London have opted to pay allowances, usually in shares, to skirt the restrictions.

The Prudential Regulatory Authority, which regulates UK banks, opposes the cap. But the European Banking Authority has said it believes that allowances are bonuses by another name, and its view will ultimately become law – and may apply to 2015 payments.

Experts suggest this could mean huge rises announced in salaries.