Morgan Stanley's Gorman is top-paid US bank CEO

New York

MORGAN Stanley chief executive officer James Gorman leaped past JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon as the best-paid CEO of a major US bank.

Morgan Stanley boosted Mr Gorman's pay 22 per cent to US$33 million for 2020, when the Wall Street bank posted its third consecutive year of record earnings. His pay includes US$1.5 million in salary and a US$7.88 million bonus, the firm said in a filing on Friday. The vast majority is in the form of US$23.6 million in long-term awards, which pay out in shares and are partially tied to return on equity and shareholder-return targets.

JPMorgan, the largest US bank, kept Mr Dimon's total compensation unchanged at US$31.5 million for his work in 2020.

Mr Gorman's firm is fresh off another year of record earnings and carried out two of the largest deals by a top Wall Street bank. The accompanying stock surge lifted its market value past US$130 billion, or nearly 30 per cent more than Goldman Sachs Group.

The Morgan Stanley chief took a surprise pay cut for 2019 amid record revenues and profit. The decision was tied to cost-cutting efforts and a round of layoffs.

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In 2020, Morgan Stanley stuck to its promise of not undertaking job cuts to reassure jittery staff concerned about the course of the pandemic. Some rivals that made a similar pledge changed course as it became apparent that the problems wrought by the virus were likely to outlast their willingness to keep cost-cutting on hold. BLOOMBERG