Goldman Sachs CFO David Viniar, paid a modest $600,000 base salary in 2007, nonetheless raked in more than $58 million after bonuses and equity-based awards, the company’s 2008 proxy statement reveals.
It was another big pay hike for Viniar, whose totals were $33 million in 2006 and $19.8 million in 2005.
Viniar’s bonus for last year was $22.6 million, of which he used $2 million to purchase restricted stock units. He also received more than $21 million in stock awards. As required by the Securities and Exchange Commission, this sum includes the dollar amount recognized as fiscal 2007 compensation and benefits expense for financial-statement reporting purposes under SFAS 123R with respect to restricted stock units granted for 2007 and prior years.
In addition, Viniar got $13.8 million in options awards. The exercise price of each option ($204.16) is equal to the closing per-share price of Goldman’s common stock on December 19, 2007, the date the options were granted. The option amount is based on the grant-date fair value of $51.04. Fair value was estimated based on a Black-Scholes option-pricing model.
All executives named in the proxy statement earned the $600,000 base salary, but three others earned total compensation even greater than Viniar’s: chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and Gary Cohn and Jon Winkelried, co-presidents and co-chief operating officers, all took in between $70 million and $72 million.