In its earnings report this morning, Goldman Sachs disclosed that the firm has set aside $6.65 billion to cover compensation for its 29,400 employees. Adding that to last quarter's $4.71 billion, Goldman has now set aside $11.36 billion in compensation during the first half of 2009, which works out to $386,395 per worker. While the year is only six months old, Goldman has already set aside more in compensation this year ($11.36 billion) than it did in all of 2008 ($10.9 billion).
To put this figure into perspective, the amount of money Goldman has set aside for compensation this year exceeds the market cap of 324 companies in the S&P 500. It is also nearly one billion dollars more than the combined market capitalizations of the twelve smallest companies (CIT, MTW, NYT, EK, GCI, MBI, CIEN, AIV, CTX, CVG, KBH, MDP) in the S&P 500.
While some will no doubt criticize Goldman's compensation levels and say they come at the expense of shareholders, we would note that through 7/13, Goldman Sachs was the 14th best performing stock in the S&P 500 this year with a gain of 77.1%. Shareholders that bought the stock recently probably aren't too upset.
Subscribe to Bespoke Premium or Premium Plus to find out which areas of the market Bespoke currently likes the most.
Comments