Wall St. Bonus Fever Spreads To UK

Wall St. will not be the only place where key workers will get multi-million dollar bonuses this year.

RBS (NYSE:RBC), a UK financial firm which came within days of failing and received massive government aid, will pay some of its executives and traders up to 5 million British pounds. Many of the packages will reach levels similar to those of the banking boom years of 2006 and 2007.

The Times of London also reports that management at Barclays (NYSE:BCS), one of the largest banks in the world, will give senior staff bonuses which reach well into the millions of pounds. Payments to top management may go into the tens of millions.

The US government does not seem to be ready to do anything about the compensation at Wall St. firms except those that they still own TARP funds. Congress and the public will have to live with the fact that on Wall St. management will be paid when big profits are made and the credit crisis has not changed that a bit.

The payouts at Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and Barclays may be a public relations problems for the firms, but they don’t seem to care. Being rich trumps being disliked.

Douglas A. McIntyre