I hesitated to post this, not wanting to appear even more ignorant than many think I am. But I scanned the comments section of this story and found that at least I’m not alone in not getting this. So if I’m stupid, there is at least one poor soul who is as dumb as I am.
Top brokers at Morgan Stanley and Citigroup‘s Smith Barney, which are to join forces in a joint venture later this year, learned last week that they will receive packages worth 105 percent of their annual revenue. That means a broker who brought in $2 million last year would get $2.1 million. Much of it will be awarded next year, and the remainder in 2012.
No wonder financial companies are losing money. They pay their brokers more money than the brokers bring into the company.
Somebody enlighten me here.