Blankfein settles for $9 million

Posted by Marc Hodak on February 7, 2010 under Executive compensation, Reporting on pay | Be the First to Comment

Like many others in the blogosphere, I have said it before and will say it again: Lloyd Blankfein is a mensch.  Except that I say it without sarcasm.

I was invited last week onto one of the networks to participate in the TV game “What will Lloyd get!” or “Do you want to tee (up) a millionaire!”  I had another speaking engagement that night, which is unfortunate because I had a sure-fire strategy to win this game.  I was going to hear what everyone else said, then go $100 below the lowest guess.  Folks, I was willing to go down to zero.

My reasoning is that LCB was too.  Blankfein doesn’t need the extra $30 or $40 million that he might be entitled to in a pre-2008 universe.  He already has more than he knows what to do with, and he doesn’t strike me as someone who really cares about the extra that he wouldn’t know what to do with.  People may want to project their image of insatiable greed onto him, but that’s their problem, not his.

Blankfein’s problem is how does he get himself and his firm off the front pages as the poster-child of finance capitalism run amok.  If he can navigate Goldman through these rapids without crashing on the rocks of public envy and political hubris, the firm can go back to printing cash for its shareholders, employees and, yes, the tax collector, in peace.  And if Goldman can grow its shareholder value, Blankfein makes out even better.  Because while everyone else is deer-staring into the bright lights of tens of millions in bonuses, Blankfein is steadily looking at his personal portfolio of GS shares, realizing that with the ups and downs of the market, his personal net worth is fluctuating by an average of $10 million per day.  Trust me, with 3.4 million shares already in his portfolio, Blankfein is really not sweating an extra 100,000 restricted shares this particular year versus being allowed to take care of the stock he has without walking around with a bulls-eye on his head.