BlackRock CEO Larry Fink's pay dropped by 30% to $25 million in 2022, making him the latest corporate leader to take a pay cut amid recession fears
- BlackRock CEO Larry Fink took a 30% pay cut last year, pocketing a total of $25.2 million.
- BlackRock has been hit by economic uncertainty, leading to pay cuts for top execs.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink is the latest corporate leader to take a pay cut for 2022 as his total compensation shrank 30% to $25.2 million, per a Friday regulatory filing.
For "partially" meeting his performance goals, the 70-year-old executive pocketed $1.5 million in base salary, $7.25 million in cash incentives, $3.75 million in deferred equity, and $12.7 million as a long-term incentive award in 2022, per the filing.
Fink — who co-founded BlackRock in 1988 — made $36 million in 2021. While Fink's pay — before and after his 2022 pay cut — is still quite significant, it's far from the top of the CEO pay scale in the US. Top on the list in 2021 was Tesla, Twitter, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk who earned $23.5 billion in 2021, while Apple CEO Tim Cook made $771 million and came in second, according to a Fortune compilation in May 2022.
Like many other companies, BlackRock has been hit by market turmoil and economic uncertainty since the last year, which has led to pay cuts for top corporate executives.
Among CEOs taking pay cuts are Apple's Cook, Goldman Sach's David Solomon, and Google's Sundar Pichai. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy's pay dropped to $1.3 million in 2022 from $212.7 million in 2021, Insider reported Friday.
It's not just Fink, four other top executives at BlackRock — including the company's president, CEO, and head of portfolio management — also saw their compensation plunge by around 30% last year.
BlackRock president Rob Kapito made $19 million; COO Rob Goldstein made $9.8 million; Rich Kushel, the head of portfolio management, made $7.7 million; and vice chairman and former CFO Garry Shellin made $6.9 million. Their performance assessments ranged from "partially meets" to "meets/exceeds," per the filing.
BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, saw its assets under management fell 14% to $8.6 trillion on December 31, 2022, from a year ago, according to its full-year earnings release on 13 January 2023. The company posted an 8% decline in full-year revenue to $17.8 billion primarily driven by the market rout and a rise in the US dollar. Full-year profit fell 12% to $5.2 billion from a year ago.
The firm's first-quarter 2023 profit fell 18% from a year ago, the company said in another Friday filing, but assets under management rose $9.1 trillion from $8.6 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2022.