Episode summary
Goldman’s Top Leaders Set to Score More Than $500 Million With Special Bonus | Bloomberg...
Bloomberg Intelligence
· · 20 min · Hosts: Scarlet Fu, Hema Parmar, Paul Sweeney, Charlie Pellett · Guests: Sridhar Natarajan, Ken Shea, Lily Meier
Summary
Goldman Sachs’ most senior leaders are set to receive a special equity bonus that could total more than $500 million, with about 20 executives in line for awards finalized later this month. The guest said the package reflects how strongly Goldman’s stock has performed since the grants were set up in 2021, rising from around $400 to about $900 a share, and noted that David Solomon could receive more than $100 million, plus a separate roughly $80 million award that vests simply by staying for five more years.
The discussion framed the payout as part of a broader shift in bank compensation, after years when long-term incentive packages at banks were rare. The guest argued that the “war for talent” and years of strong banking and capital-markets activity have changed the mood, but also warned that bank shares have underperformed broader indices this year and that the next five years may not look as strong as the last five.
The episode also covered PepsiCo’s mixed quarter, with international growth offsetting pressure in North America from weaker beverages, softer snack trends, rising input costs and freight pressure. Levi Strauss was discussed as having missed a trend in its back-to-school marketing, hurting direct-to-consumer growth, while Lululemon’s new leadership was highlighted as taking over amid product problems, slower growth and heavy investor scrutiny.
Key takeaways
- The guest said Goldman Sachs’ special bonus pool exceeds $500 million and covers about 20 executives, including more than $100 million for David Solomon.
- The guest said Goldman’s grant hurdles were easy to clear on absolute stock performance because the share price rose from about $400 to around $900.
- The guest said bank shares have generally underperformed the S&P 500 this year, even after a strong multi-year run for Goldman and peers.
- Ken Shea said PepsiCo’s growth was supported by international business, while North America, margin pressure and rising input costs remain the main problems.
- Lily Meier said Levi Strauss missed the low-rise jeans trend in a back-to-school campaign, hurting direct-to-consumer growth.
- Lily Meier said Lululemon’s new product chief will have to fix product issues and regain trust as the stock remains under pressure.
Notable quotes
“about 20 folks who will be in line to receive these payouts that will be finalized at the end of the month”
“When these awards were put in place, the stock was around $400. Now it's around $900 a share”
“in the campaign, they really focused on loose jeans and missed the mark on low-rise jeans, which are more popular with consumers right now”
How the episode opens
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You ready to talk Goldman Sachs? — Let's get into it. — Yeah. All right. We got a big story here. Headline on the Bloomberg Goldman special bonus for top brass set to exceed $500 million. CEO David Solomon could see more than 100 million. And joining us now, chief Wall Street correspondent Shri Natarajin. Shri, welcome. Those are big numbers. How many people are in the pool and how many ways is this going to be divvied up?
Charlie, it's most certainly a big number. This is about 20 folks who will be in line to receive these payouts that will be finalized at the end of the month. So you still have two weeks to go.
There's still a lot of room for the stock to move either way. If it goes up, the reward size will obviously go up. But if it moves the wrong direction, the total price could come down.
But what is interesting about this is just the breadth of this award. We have seen the biggest financial firms, the private equity firms and everyone else do out long-term incentive packages for their top executive, for their top two or three executives. And that was how it was supposed to play out at Goldman Sachs as well when these awards were first announced in 2021.
It was only supposed to be for its CEO David Solomon and his deputy President John Waldron. But at that time there was some level of push back from shareholders. Employees were annoyed as to why only those two executives were getting that award.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- goldman bonus
- equity awards
- pepsico earnings
- levi earnings
- retail sector guidance
Companies and tickers mentioned
- GS
- PEP
- LEVI
- LULU
- NKE
- Goldman Sachs
- PepsiCo
- Levi Strauss & Co.
- Lululemon Athletica
- Gap
- Nike
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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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