The bosses of the biggest banks on Wall Street all got pay bumps, but the biggest raise belonged to Citigroup (C) CEO Jane Fraser.
Fraser’s total 2024 compensation rose by roughly a third to $34.5 million, according to a new filing Tuesday, as she navigated the New York financial giant through an effort to improve its safety and profitability.
So far this year, Citigroup’s stock has outperformed all peers with a roughly 20% jump. Last year, Citigroup’s stock surged 37% along with other big banks on optimism about interest rates and the new Trump administration.
Fraser’s new award — which was up from $26 million for 2023 — reflected the board’s “belief that Ms. Fraser’s strategic and other priorities are sound and that she is executing on them promptly and thoughtfully,” according to the Citigroup filing.
Goldman Sachs (GS) CEO David Solomon collected the second-biggest compensation increase among big banks as his total 2024 pay rose to $39 million. Both he and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon received the same total, tied for the highest mark among their rivals.
Bank of America (BAC) CEO Brian Moynihan received $35 million, and Morgan Stanley (MS) boss Ted Pick got $34 million in his first year as CEO.
The lowest payout — $31.2 million — went to Wells Fargo (WFC) CEO Charles Scharf. He and the San Francisco-based bank are in the midst of a turnaround effort designed to shed the problems of the past.
Wells Fargo is waiting for bank regulators to lift a strenuous consent order related to a fake accounts scandal that roiled the bank before Scharf took over; it has constrained the bank from getting bigger for the better part of a decade.
The majority of pay for all of the big bank CEOs came in the form of stock-linked incentives, as opposed to cash.
At Citigroup, for example, Fraser received the same base salary she received the year before of $1.5 million and $4.95 million more in cash as an incentive performance award.
But another $11.55 million came as deferred stock that vests at market prices over four years so long as she meets certain targets. The other half of Fraser’s pay came as so-called performance share units linked to two metrics that gauge the company’s return to shareholders.
Fraser was named CEO in September 2020 and took over officially in March of 2021.
Fraser had a lot to navigate in 2024 as she reorganized the company around five core divisions: services, banking, markets, wealth, and US personal banking.
Citigroup increased its revenue across all five of those newly defined divisions to $81.1 billion, a 3% increase.
