Might the Wall Street fashion for skipping bonuses as penance for subprime losses spread to US financiers operating out of London?
Not if they are Bob Diamond, it seems.
The BarCap boss is on track to receive a salary top up of at least £14.8m for 2007, according to the Guardian, thanks to his own “personal bonus scheme.”
No other member of the Barclays board has the “retained incentive opportunity” which was put in place to allow Diamond to continue to benefit from pay schemes in the group’s Barclays Capital investment banking arm when he took on wider responsibilities in 2005.
An analysis of the performance of Barclays Capital appears to indicate that a three-year performance plan worth £14.8m will pay out in February. Diamond stands to receive half the amount in cash and the remainder in shares by March 15; the shares will be released after a year.
Mr Diamond’s bonus is based on a calculation of “economic profit”, with BarCap needing to generate a cumulative figure of £2bn between the start of January 2005 and the end of December 2007. The figures for the year to end-December 2007 have yet to be released, but in 2005 and 2006 the total had already reached £1.8bn.