Thursday, August 13, 2009

The saga of Andrew J. Hall

Uncle Vik's headache has not gone away and I am sure he is sleeping less. Obama's Compensation Czar is set to begin formal reviews this week of the pay practices at several firms which have received TARP money, including Citi. A big blip on the radar in this review is sure to be the 100 million dollar package that the star trader, Andrew J. Hall of Phibro, Citi's commodities trading unit is poised to receive this year, just like he did last year.

The best that the Citi people can come up with in terms of defending this package is to say that his compensation is exempt because it is part of a contract signed before the law establishing the review system was passed.

Hall is good and Phibro makes money which is more than can be said about many of Citi's other business units, but the headache is so big that Citi has even explored selling Phibro.

Here is the NYT article that covers the issue in its entirety.

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