Bill Winters has lost $4m at Standard Chartered, where someone just earned $21m

Bill Winters and Jes Staley should get together and commiserate. Jes has lost $3.4m since taking over as CEO of Barclays last November and Bill Winters has lost $4m since taking over as CEO of Standard Chartered a few months' earlier.

Winters' loss comes on the $9.93m of Standard Chartered stock he was awarded to buy him out of Renshaw Bay, the private debt fund management company he founded after leaving J.P. Morgan. Since Winters was given the stock on 22nd September 2015, Standard Chartered's share price has declined by more than 40%.

Unfortunately, Winters can't just sell up. Today's remuneration report from Standard Chartered reveals that the stock vests equally in three tranches - in September 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Nor will Winters receive a cash bonus for his efforts so far. He will, however, be awarded some new shares as part of a Long Term Incentive Plan (LTIP) in May 2016, which will be subject to a one year holding period.

In the interest of maximizing his own compensation, therefore Winters needs to keep Standard Chartered's share price low until this LTIP's been awarded in May and then go all out to increase it before his first tranche of stock vests 16 months later. Winters needs to be canny: Standard Chartered says the next round of LTIPs, issued in March 2017 'will vest in five equal tranches from March 2020 to March 2024.'

In the interim, Winters will need to live on his salary, allowance and cash bonus (if paid), plus the $327k a year he's still drawing as a non-executive director of pharmaceutical company Novartis.

Did Mike Rees just earn $21m?

Not everyone at Standard Chartered is having to be quite so calculating about pay. Today's report also reveals that an unnamed employee at Standard Chartered received $21m for his/her efforts last year. Who could that be? All eyes turn to Mike Rees, Standard Chartered's deputy chief executive and head of its wholesale bank, who's known for his gigantic pay packets.

Winters dispensed with Rees who 'resigned' in January and is due to step down in April. Assuming Rees is indeed the $21m man, he will now be free to take the $93m he's earned at Standard Chartered since 2009 to Tuscany, where he has a farm and vineyard. 

Winters, in the meantime, will need to hang on until 2024 to get all his (much lower) compensation for 2016. If ever there were an illustration of the diminished lucrativeness of a senior banking job, this would seem to be it.

Photo credit: Champagne Vineyards in Autumn by Vincent Brassinne  is licensed under CC BY 2.0.