Blankfein Says He Wouldn’t Leave Goldman Sachs If Pay Were Cut

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS)’s Lloyd Blankfein, whose bonus for last year almost doubled, said he would stay as chief executive officer even if the company cut his pay.

“Not today, no,” Blankfein said today in an interview on CNBC, responding to a question about whether he would leave if the New York-based firm paid him less.

Blankfein, 58, was granted $13.3 million in restricted stock for last year that comprises about 70 percent of his total bonus, a person with knowledge of the matter said last week. On that basis, the total bonus is about $19 million including $5.7 million in cash, up from a $10 million stock-and-cash award for 2011. Blankfein, who is also the bank’s chairman, receives a $2 million salary.

“I’ve been in this firm for 30 years,” Blankfein said in the interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “Most of my interest in Goldman Sachs comes from trading in my partnership interest for stock. So I’m more of a shareholder (GS) than an employee.”

A $21 million total compensation package would be Blankfein’s highest since his $68.5 million record in 2007, when Goldman Sachs’s earnings per share were 75 percent higher.

To contact the reporter on this story: Laura Marcinek in New York at lmarcinek3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Scheer at dscheer@bloomberg.net