Citi, BOA top managers pocketed $18 million pay in 2008

Records from Treasury Department paymaster Kenneth Feinberg reveal that Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. paid, on average, an amount of $18.2 million each last year to their top brass.

Put together, the two banks were aided to the tune of $90 billion as bailout funds under the TARP scheme.

Mind-boggling payouts
A deeper analysis reveals that New York-based Citigroup doled out $390.2 million to 21 people at an average of $18.6 million each. Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America, on the other hand, paid $227.8 million to 13 executives at a slightly lesser average of $17.5 million apiece.

The data does not include top-paid employees from 2008 who left the banks thereafter. The Average pay for managers at these two banks was close to double than that of the other five bailed-out companies reviewed by Feinberg.

Feinberg has already advised the Wall Street players to implement pay cuts in 2009 averaging more than 50 percent. Thus, the 136 executives at the seven firms which were reviewed by Feinberg, will take home a much thinner pay check.

Furthermore, most of the compensation will be in the form of restricted stock to persuade executives to work towards long-term performance.

The mandate from Feinberg came after President Barack Obama rebuked the colossal bonuses and said “it does offend our values” when company executives “pay themselves huge bonuses even as they continue to rely on taxpayer assistance.”

The slashed compensation
Bank of America will disburse a sum of $78.6 million to the top 13 executives in 2009. The disbursement represents a 66 percent dip from the compensation paid last year. On average, the executives will pocket an average of about $6 million each.

The cut for Citigroup executives will be higher in percentage perms. In all, they will get $272 million, or 70 percent lower than last year. They will, however, still get an average of $5.6 million each.

Meanwhile, chief executive officer of Citigroup, Vikram Pandit, has voluntarily decided to take $1 in pay for the current year. 52-year-old Pandit had pocketed $10.8 million in 2008.

Feinberg set “$0” in pay for Andrew Hall, the former head of Citigroup’s energy-trading unit. Hall was paid a mammoth $100 million in 2008.

Meanwhile, 62-year-old CEO of Bank of America, Kenneth Lewis, who will hang up his boots at the end of the year, is also working for free.