Morgan Stanley (MS) And Citigroup (C) To Pay $3 Billion To Brokers? Not If Treasury Says “No”

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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cammonopoly_wideweb__430x325012Wall St. keeps coming up with new ways to waste money and upset Congress, the Administration, and the public.

Part of the argument made by large financial firms for paying out big big bonuses is that their best people, the ones who make their companies all the money, will leave.

The  latest chapter in this race to get money into the hands of bankers and brokers before the government shuts down the game is that the new joint venture between Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) and Citigroup (NYSE:C) will  likely pay out $3 billion in retention bonuses

According toThe Wall Street Journal, “While the terms aren’t expected to be announced until later this month, the issue could grow politically sensitive, because the U.S. government holds stakes in Citigroup and Morgan Stanley as part of its bailout of the financial system”

Paying the retentions fees will never happen. Either Morgan Stanley and Citigroup figure that the they will not lose enough of their senior brokers to cost them the $3 billion, or the Treasury Secretary will call the company and say “no”, not with the government’s money”

It will probably be the call with the “no” at the end. Wall St. is too used to wasting money.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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