Stock options have long been a key compensation metric for executives in the banking sector – although falling stock prices in recent years have limited some exercising, the rebound in stock prices are putting many of those options back in the money. Recent securities filings show that is especially true at Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), where Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein and President Gary D. Cohn exercised more 10-year-old stock options, boosting their total gains to more than $5 million each. While Blankfein and Cohn pocketed the largest gains, additional executives at the firm similarly exercised options.
Blankfein collected $2.78 million this week exercising 68,834 options that were due to expire this month and selling the underlying shares, adding to a $3.15 million gain last month, according to filings. Cohn, meanwhile, reaped $3.64 million exercising 90,000 options and selling the shares, adding to $1.87 million made from sales in October, the filings show. Eight executives at Goldman Sachs, including Blankfein and Cohn, have collected about $35.8 million exercising options that were granted 10 years ago at a strike price of $78.87 and selling the shares this month and last, according to company filings. The shares obtained by exercising options this week were sold at prices ranging from $116.65 to $121.29.
J. Michael Evans, the vice chairman who oversees Goldman Sachs’s emerging-markets business, booked $13.2 million by exercising options and selling shares, according to a Nov. 26 filing.
Gregory K. Palm, Goldman Sachs’s general counsel, made about $1.11 million by exercising 27,573 options this week, according to a filing Nov. 28.
Chief Financial Officer David A. Viniar, who is set to step down from his role in January, made $2.28 million selling 50,751 shares last month, and John S. Weinberg, 55, a vice chairman and co-head of investment banking, made $1.87 million selling 41,094 shares after exercising options in October, filings show.
Sarah Smith, the chief accounting officer, exercised 4,107 options and sold the underlying shares for a profit of $185,681 last month, a filing showed.
Michael DuVally, a spokesman at Goldman Sachs in New York, declined to comment on the executives’ sales. There is nothing illegal or unscrupulous about the executives exercising their options, though for a firm struggling to repair its image as disconnected from the struggles of Main Street, these results could likely widen that divide.
