By ERIC DASH
Published: April 16, 2010
Co-founder, former chairman and chief executive, Countrywide Financial
QUOTE “No single entity or industry sector is responsible for the collapse in housing prices. ... The issue is not so much the products, but the housing market.”
BLAME In testimony before a House panel in March 2008, he faulted real estate speculators, rating agencies, a sharp decline in investor appetite for certain mortgages, and market psychology.
TOTAL COMPENSATION $530.9 million.
Former chairman and chief executive, Bank of America
QUOTE Mr. Lewis has never apologized for the Merrill Lynch deal, which caused the bank to seek a second bailout from Washington. “Some observers have said the price to which we agreed looked steep given the economic environment of the moment,” Mr. Lewis said, referring to his ill-fated purchase of Merrill Lynch. “I believe the price we paid represented a good value, given the full value of the company in a more normal economic environment.”
BLAME Mr. Lewis said the economic downturn has many causes, but said the primary contributor was a massive bubble in home values and housing finance over several years.
TOTAL COMPENSATION $251.5 million
Kerry K. Killinger
Former chief executive, Washington Mutual
QUOTE “As C.E.O., I accept responsibility for our performance and am deeply saddened by what happened.”
BLAME In his testimony before a Senate panel, he also said that federal regulators and Wall Street’s “too clubby to fail” culture contributed to WaMu’s demise. “For those outside the club, the penalty was severe,” he said.
TOTAL COMPENSATION $95.7 million
Former chairman of the executive committee and board member, Citigroup
QUOTE “We all bear responsibility for not recognizing this, and I deeply regret that.”
BLAME In testimony before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission on April 8, Mr. Rubin stopped short of accepting personal responsibility for Citigroup’s troubles. He blamed at least a dozen forces — from trade imbalances to a surge in the use of complexderivatives.
TOTAL COMPENSATION $101 million
Former chairman and chief executive, Merrill Lynch
QUOTE “The bottom line is, despite our best efforts, a lot of money was lost in this one area” — mortgage securities — “and I, as the chief executive of the firm, was held accountable,” he told The New Yorker in a written statement in March 2008. “At the same time, the record over all is that we — the firm under my leadership — did a lot of things that benefited Merrill Lynch greatly and will continue to benefit the firm in the years ahead.”
BLAME In testimony before a House committee in March 2008, Mr. O’Neal blamed an “unprecedented meltdown in the credit market” and noted that credit rating agencies failed to foresee the magnitude of the risk. In the latest issue of Fortune magazine, Mr. O’Neal said he recognized Merrill’s mortgage problems in August 2007 but failed to persuade Merrill’s directors to sell the company at the time. (Bank of America bought it a year later at a much lower price.)
TOTAL COMPENSATION $201.9 million.
Chairman and chief executive, Goldman Sachs
QUOTE “We participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret and apologize for,” he said at a conference last November in a response to a question about impact the crisis has had on the firm’s image. “Some of this is real and some of this is extrapolated.”
BLAME In an appearance before the financial crisis panel in mid-January, Mr. Blankfein said overdependence on credit ratings, risk models that substituted data for judgment, and a fundamental mispricing of risk also contributed to the crisis.
TOTAL COMPENSATION $391.2 million
Former chairman of the Federal Reserve
QUOTE “I was right 70 percent of the time but I was wrong 30 percent of the time.”
BLAME In testimony before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission on April 7, Mr. Greenspan pointed to an undercapitalized banking system and inadequate risk management by banks. He said that the Fed’s limited powers restricted it from doing more to stop abusive lending practices.
TOTAL COMPENSATION $2.6 million.
Former chairman and chief executive, Lehman Brothers
QUOTE “I take full responsibility for the decisions that I made and for the actions that I took,” he told a House committee in October 2008. “I feel horrible about what has happened to the company and its effects on so many — my colleagues, my shareholders, my creditors and my clients.”
BLAME Mr. Fuld said he acted prudently but Lehman was done in by higher borrowing costs, naked short attacks, accounting rules that forced the bank to mark down the value of its assets, and credit rating agency downgrades. He suggested that the Federal Reserve was unwilling to save the firm.
TOTAL COMPENSATION $167.5 million. (He lost about $900 million in stock when his firm went bankrupt.)
Former chairman and chief executive, Citigroup
QUOTE “Let me start by saying I’m sorry. I’m sorry the financial crisis has had such a devastating impact for our country. I’m sorry about the millions of people, average Americans, who lost their homes. And I’m sorry that our management teams, starting with me, like so many others could not see the unprecedented market collapse that lay before us.”
BLAME In his testimony before the financial crisis commission on April 8, he also said that other factors — from rating agencies, to patchwork regulation, to the explosive growth of securitization — contributed to the crisis.
TOTAL COMPENSATION $132.7 million.
Former chairman, Bear Stearns
QUOTE “I have no anger, only regret,” he told employees at a final meeting in May 2008. “Fourteen-thousand families were affected. I personally apologize. I feel an enormous amount of pain and management feels an enormous amount of pain.”
BLAME In a Fortune magazine article in August 2008, Mr. Cayne blamed himself. “I didn’t stop it,” he said. “I didn’t rein in the leverage.”
TOTAL COMPENSATION $424.3 million. (He lost about $900 million in stock when Bear was taken over by JP Morgan Chase.)
Total compensation includes career salary, bonus, proceeds from stock and options sales and accumulated stock and retirement benefits, according to publicly available filings. For executives who left their firms, their stock is valued at their date of departure. For those who remained, their stock was valued as of Friday’s market close. Data analyzed by Equilar, James F. Reda & Associates.
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