JPMorgan Chase's (JPM) Jamie Dimon was easily the banking industry's highest-paid chief executive last year, raking in more than $23 million in salary, bonuses and stock-related compensation.
Wells Fargo's (WFC) John Stumpf ranked second among highest-paid CEOs, according to an analysis of proxy reports by SNL Financial, earning a total of $19.8 million, and Capital One Financial's (COF) Richard Fairbank — despite receiving no base salary or bonus — ranked third, earning nearly $18.7 million.
SNL, of Charlottesville, Va., analyzed the compensation packages of hundreds of CEOs of publicly traded banks and thrifts and packaged them into rankings of highest- and lowest-paid, based on asset size.
Though Citigroup (NYSE: C) and Bank of America (BAC) are among the nation's four-largest banking companies — along with JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo — their CEOs earned less last year than many of their counterparts at smaller banks.
Three other CEOs, Fairbank, PNC Financial Services Group's (PNC) James Rohr and State Street's (STT) Joseph Hooley earned more than the $14.8 million Citi's Vikram Pandit took home, and at least 10 were better compensated than Bank of America's Brian Moynihan, who earned $8.1 million.
Notably, many banks are no longer paying bonuses, instead supplementing CEOs salaries with stock options. At the four largest banks, only Dimon and Pandit received bonuses — both in excess of $4.5 million — and of the 10 highest-paid CEOs at banks with between $10 billion and $500 billion of assets, not one received a bonus last year, SNL found.
Compensation experts say that the shift away from cash bonuses is a result of increased pressure from shareholders to tie pay to stock performance.
Aside from Fairbank, Rohr and Hooley, the highest paid CEOs at banks with between $10 billion and $500 billion of assets were: Frederick Waddell at Northern Trust (NTRS); Richard Davis at U.S. Bancorp (USB); Jorge Moran at Santander Holdings USA; Gerald Hassell at Bank of New York Mellon (BK); Dominic Ng at East West Bancorp (EWBC); Ralph Babb at Comerica (CMA); and Russell Goldsmith at City National (CYN) in Los Angeles. All earned between $9.5 million and $14.3 million in 2011.
At banks with between $1 billion and $10 billion of assets, the highest earners were Roger Taylor at Capital Bank Financial (CBKN) in Raleigh, N.C., ($13.8 million) and Louis Cappelli at Sterling Bancorp (STL) in New York ($5.2 million).
The lowest-paid CEO at a regional bank was Aurelio Bermudez at First Bancorp (FBP) in Puerto Rico, who earned $855,000 last year. Still, Bermudez was the only one among the 10 lowest-paid CEOs to earn less than $1 million. Others in that group included Kessel Stelling at Synovus Financial (SNV), who took home just under $1.5 million, and Bank of Hawaii's (B)H) Peter Ho, who earned roughly $2.1 million.
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