Brits are getting ready to be very angry today, as US investment bank JP Morgan gets ready to kick off the reporting season. The expectation is that they will show that they have set aside as much as 6.3 billion that it paid to investment bankers; which includes as many as 8000 staff members in London during 2010.
Such extreme bonuses and rewards come at a time when economic hardships are hitting across the boards and when so many people have lost their jobs. Business Secretary Vince Cable has actually been consulting over the idea of creating dramatic new measures to curb the sky-high awards system.
According to the figures from the Manifest voting agency, the bosses of FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 companies say payments that increased their salaries for the year by as much as 12% as a result of their bonuses.
Sarah Wilson of Manifest points out, however, that the pay for bosses of smaller companies has actually moderated in recent years. The truth is that the awarded total remuneration increases in the past year are probably in line with general employee increases of two or three per cent. In other words, remuneration committees have been getting the message and are now showing restraint. It is hard to justify the increases in total executive remuneration we saw in the ten years up to 2008.
Next month, British lenders will start issuing their results so that all will be revealed. And then the public will be able to see how corporate companies have been, indeed.