Goldman Sachs trims Blankfein's 2009 bonus to $9 million

 Goldman Sachs Group Inc,  the sixth largest bank in the US by assets, said yesterday that its chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, will not receive any cash bonus, and will receive a stock-based bonus of just $9 million in 2009.

In a regulatory filing, the investment banking and securities firm said Blankfein received restricted stock worth just $9 million based on the firm's closing share price of $154.16 on Friday.

This seems much smaller compared with the stock-based bonuses his rivals received. JP Morgan Chase said it would award $17 million to its chief executive Jamie Dimon.

The Goldman CEO took no bonus in 2008, when profits plunged during the financial crisis.

Blankfein was one of the few who has come out in the open against fat pay cheques for bankers, saying that the clamour over bank compensation programmes and bonuses was "understandable and appropriate" and that multi-year guaranteed employment contracts "should be banned entirely" (See: Goldman chief backs calls for shift in bankers' bonus policy).

"There is little justification for the payment of outsized discretionary compensation when a financial institution lost money for the year," Blankfein told a banking conference in Frankfurt last September.