Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon received the birthday present of a lifetime on Friday as the bank announced he had raked in a wallet-busting $39 million paycheck last year.
Solomon, who turned 63 Friday, received a 26% hike from what he picked up in 2023 — pocketing a $2 million base salary, and an $8.3 million cash bonus, with the rest paid in stock options.
He will also earn an $80 million retention bonus if he remains with the bank for another five years, Goldman said in a regulatory filing.
It is unclear how he will be celebrating the two milestones, but Solomon will be heading to Washington, D.C. this weekend for a string of events ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
The Wall Street giant made the disclosure two days after it posted surging full-year profits driven by a revival in M&A activity and growing optimism about the incoming administration’s economic policies.
The retention bonus means Solomon will tighten his grip on the bank as he looks to stay in the top job until the end of the decade.
His would-be successor, president and chief operating officer John Waldron, 55, will also pocket the same sum if he stays with Goldman until 2030.
Waldron has been in his position since 2018 and is widely seen as Solomon’s closest confidant, having previously served as the co-head of investment banking at 200 West Street.
The decision, signed off by the financial giant’s compensation committee, comes after Waldron briefly held talks about joining Marc Rowan’s Apollo Global Management, according to a report last month by the Wall Street Journal.
The move by the board is being seen as a bid to keep Waldron with the bank that he joined in 2000. The announcement comes 24 hours after Goldman’s rank-and-file were informed of the size of their 2024 bonuses.
The size of each individual bonus has not been disclosed.
“The firm is delivering strong performance and the board is determined to maintain our momentum, ensure stability, and keep in place a solid succession plan,” said Goldman Sachs spokesperson Tony Fratto.
But in a note to clients, Wells Fargo analyst Mike Mayo acknowledged that the pair had presided over “strong growth in revenue (and) earnings” but warned the firm that the bumper payouts “could be alienating to other high-level execs or employees.”
“We still question these awards, and the assumed benefit to shareholders (low, in our view),” the note said.
Goldman’s stock price has shot up by nearly 50% over the past year and is up by 174% since Solomon took over from his long-serving predecessor Lloyd Blankfein in 2018.
Shares were up 1.7% in Friday morning trading, at $624.43.
Over the past two years, Solomon has refocused the bank’s efforts on its traditional investment banking activities after racking up billions of dollars in losses on its consumer banking arm, Marcus.
His reign has also been dogged by negative headlines about his DJing side hustle, where he appeared under his house music moniker D-Sol, and his frequent use of corporate aircraft.
But the latest financial results appear to have soothed concerns with investors, with Solomon eyeing another five years at the helm of the American financial titan.
“I’ve got a great job and I’ll be the CEO as long as the board wants me to be,” he said at a Reuters conference in New York last month.
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