By Steve Slater
LONDON (Reuters) - London and Wall Street bankers look set to get slightly lower bonuses for 2014 than the year before, based on pay details released this week by big U.S. banks and expectations in the industry.
Goldman Sachs said on Friday its staff were paid $12.69 billion in compensation and benefits for 2014, up 0.6 percent on 2013. That equated to an average of $373,000 for its 34,000 employees, down 2.6 percent after it added staff in the year.
JPMorgan said pay in its corporate and investment bank (CIB) for 2014 fell 4 percent from 2013. It reduced staff during the year, so average pay for the 51,129 CIB staff was $204,000, down 1.5 percent on the year.
Citigroup is expected to reduce the bonus pool for traders by about 5-10 per cent and its advisory bankers can expect a modest increase, a person familiar with the matter said. The bank, which told staff their awards on Friday, did not break out pay for its investment bank in its results.
Bank of America said its total personnel costs fell 2.7 percent last year from 2013 but did not break out pay for investment banking.
Industry sources said the pattern for bonuses was likely to reflect the performance of businesses: bond traders will see bonuses fall by up to 10 percent, pay for M&A advisors and capital markets bankers has generally gone up, and bonuses in equities are near flat.
Emolument, a salary benchmarking site, said bonuses for advisory and origination staff in London could jump by 25 percent on average, payouts in equities would dip by between 3 and 5 percent and in fixed income, currencies and commodities (FICC) bonuses would fall by 5 to 7 percent. Its estimates were based on data from 360 front office bankers working in London.
At JPMorgan, ranked the number one investment bank, 2014 FICC revenues were down 13 percent on the year, investment bank division fees were up 4 percent and equities revenues were up 1 percent.
Sources said some banks were likely to have scaled back bonuses after a weak performance in December hurt fourth-quarter profits.
Bonuses are typically awarded when banks release full-year results or shortly thereafter. European banks, including Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and UBS, typically pay less than their U.S. rivals and report results between late January and early March.