The head of Citigroup’s (NYSE:C) investment banking division John Havens received at minimum $9.7 for his work for the company in 2009. In a regulatory filing this week, Citigroup revealed Havens had been awarded 2.7 million shares at the end of December worth $9.7 million. That doesn’t reflect his cash salary, which wasn’t disclosed in the filing. Consequently, Havens is now the highest paid employee at Citigroup as a result.
Citigroup is in the worst shape of all the major investment banks, and received as much taxpayer aid as any other bank in the United States, being given $45 billion in TARP funds in 2009. While they just recently paid that back, the government still maintains a small stake in the financial institution.
Havens has a reputation for being tough and difficult to work with, and has a take-no-prisoners type of attitude. Graduated from Harvard, Havens heads up the institutional clients group, which makes him responsible all the trading and transactional types of services at the bank, hedge funds and unique investments like that, as well as investment banking.
Evidently the pay for Havens and how it was structured has been approved by the Obama administration czar Kenneth Feinberg, who was appointed to oversee the compensation awarded to top executives at banks or financial institutions that had been bailed out.
Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit was paid $1 for the year.
Industry analysts are projecting Citigroup to end 2009 with a loss of approximately 25 cents a share.
