A few lucky executives at Citigroup (C) received base pay raises this year, but CEO Vikram Pandit isn't among them. The bank announced that it will compensate Pandit exactly $1 for his services, with no stock salary. Last year, the chief executive collected a modest salary (by Wall Street standards) of $958,333.
Meanwhile, Chief Financial Officer John Gerspach's base compensation was hiked from $400,000 to $500,000 effective Nov. 1. James Forese, co-head of global markets, enjoyed an even heftier pay raise -- his base salary jumped from $225,000 to $475,000.
Vice chairman Stephen Volk didn't score a salary increase from his current rate of $500,000, but Volk, Forese and Gerspach all received sizable stock salary awards. Volk will rake in $3.4 million in stock, Gerspach will collect $2.92 million and Forese will take in $5.4 million. (Believe it or not, at the end of the day, this represents a pay cut of roughly half for both Forese and Volk.)
The Obama administration's pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, approved all of Citi's executive pay packages last month. A source told Reuters that no pay raise was requested for Pandit.
At last check, C shares were fractionally higher to trade near $4.27. The stock has shed 49% of its value during the past 52 weeks, and it's down 92.5% from its December 2006 peak at $57.
Elizabeth Harrow is a senior equities analyst and financial writer in the research department at Schaeffer's Investment Research. She is featured in the video series Schaeffer's Daily Q&A on SchaeffersResearch.com.
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