Bank of America Merrill Lynch bankers in London earn less than half as much as London bankers at Goldman Sachs
It's already known that Goldman Sachs bankers in London are very well paid, even compared to Goldman bankers internationally. It may therefore not come as a huge surprise that they're also very well paid compared to their counterparts at rival firms.
While the average employee at Goldman Sachs International was paid $966.5k last year (including national insurance costs), reports filed with Companies House show that the average employee at Merrill Lynch International earned $440k.
It probably helped that profit per head at Goldman Sachs International was $145k last year while the average employee of Merrill Lynch International made a loss of $35k.
However, Goldman's London bankers aren't very profitable compared to its bankers elsewhere. Globally, Goldman's bankers made an average profit per head of $234k in 2010 - 63% higher than their counterparts in the UK. Living costs are higher in London than elsewhere, but this leads to questions why Goldman's people in Fleet Street are paid so much more when they're not really that profitable.
The firm may be hoping 2010 was a one-off. As Finanical News notes, the profitability of most US banks' UK-registered business plummeted last year. At both Goldman Sachs International profits and Citigroup Global Markets, profits were down 78% year on year in the 12 months to December 31st 2010. At Merrill Lynch International a $2.6bn profit in 2009 became a $90m loss last year.
Citigroup Global Markets also appears to have been unperturbed by its plummeting profitability: its highest paid director earned $4.6m last year, vs. $1.9m in 2009 when its profits were far higher.
