$14M haul for Wells’ brokerage and wealth head David Carroll

The senior executive vice president in charge of Wells Fargo & Co.'s Wealth Management, Brokerage and Retirement Services Division made the bulk of his pay from an option award and a retention bonus.

David M. Carroll, the senior executive vice president in charge of Wells Fargo & Co.’s Wealth Management, Brokerage and Retirement Services Division, will see his salary more than double this year.
Mr. Carroll, who made $700,000 last year in base salary, began earning a $1.5 million salary March 1, according to a proxy statement filed by Wells Fargo today.
He received $14.3 million in total compensation last year, the bulk of it from an option award and bonus he received as part of a retention payment.
The retention compensation was paid under a one-year employment agreement Mr. Carroll signed with Wells on Dec. 30, 2008.
In 2007, as a senior executive vice president of Wachovia Corp., Mr. Carroll earned $650,000 in salary, got stock and options awards worth $2.5 million, and was given a $2.9 million bonus.
In 2008, Wells Fargo stepped in to buy struggling Wachovia Corp.
According to the proxy, Mr. Carroll’s incentive pay last year was not affected by any government-imposed rules under the Troubled Asset Relief Program because he signed his agreement prior to imposition of TARP regulations.
Wells Fargo received $25 billion as part of the government bailout of large corporations.
Legacy Wachovia Securities brokers weren’t so lucky. Due to intense scrutiny of any bonuses being paid by the bailed-out banks, brokers at the firm received no retention payments after Wells took over.
In addition to Mr. Carroll, Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf’s compensation also more than doubled — hitting $18.7 million in 2009, a year that saw the bank report $8 billion in profit and repay government bailout money, according to an Associated Press analysis of regulatory filings.

Mr. Stumpf, 56, received a $5.6 million salary made up mostly of company stock and a separate $13 million performance-based stock bonus, Wells Fargo & Co. said in a preliminary filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Mr. Stumpf’s 2008 compensation totaled $9 million, 21% less than the previous year. His 2009 pay makes him among the nation’s highest-paid bank CEOs.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon received $16 million in compensation for 2009, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein received $9 million.

Lawmakers and shareholders sharply criticized Wall Street pay after the biggest banks lost billions of dollars on bad mortgage bets, helped cause the recession and then had to be bailed out by the government.

Wells Fargo said last month that it will allow shareholders to cast a nonbinding vote on compensation for the bank’s top five executives. The vote will come at the bank’s annual meeting in April.

The “say on pay” issue has been debated in recent years, and provisions to require such nonbinding votes are included in several bills submitted to Congress regarding financial regulation.

Mr. Stumpf’s stock award would be forfeited if he leaves the San Francisco-based Wells Fargo for a competitor. The shares vest after three years if the nation’s fourth-largest bank meets certain performance goals. He received no cash bonus.

The lack of a 2009 cash bonus and the three-year vesting period are similar to a moves made by other banks. Goldman’s 30 high-ranking executives, for example, got no cash bonuses last year, instead receiving stock that cannot be sold for at least five years.

Mr. Stumpf’s compensation included $45,895 in perquisites, or “perks,” including financial planning, car service and home security.

The Associated Press calculations of total pay include executives’ salary, bonus, incentives, perks, above-market returns on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock options and awards granted during the year. The calculations don’t include changes in the present value of pension benefits, and they sometimes differ from the totals that companies list in the summary compensation table of proxy statements filed with the SEC.

Wells Fargo issued new stock during the last quarter of 2009 as part of its repayment of government bailout money. The bank was one of the final large, national banks to pay back the $25 billion it received as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

[The Associated Press contributed to this story].