Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser got a 6% pay bump for her performance in 2023, a year the bank’s profits dropped 38% and Fraser began a dramatic restructuring that will result in an estimated 20,000 job cuts.
The board awarded her total compensation of $26 million, Citigroup (C) said in a Tuesday regulatory filing. The amount includes a base salary of $1.5 million and $24.5 million in cash as well as deferred stock and performance-based compensation units vesting in the coming years.
The award, which was up from $24.5 million in 2022, reflected the board’s “belief that Ms. Fraser’s strategic and other priorities are sound and that she is executing on them promptly and thoughtfully, with an eye towards driving long-term sustainable growth, improved returns and enhanced safety and soundness,” according to the filing.
The $26 million for Fraser was the lowest among CEO rivals at JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley, who received between $29 million and $37 million. Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan was the only CEO among this group to experience a compensation decline.
Fraser was named CEO in September 2020 and took over in February of 2021. Since then, the stock has risen more than 5%. So far this year, it has outperformed the stocks of all peers with a nearly 8% gain.
Fraser had a lot to navigate in 2023, including the largest profit decline among her big rivals and what she called the “most consequential” change to how the New York lender operates in nearly two decades.
Instead of operating with two mega-divisions, she is splitting the bank into five separate units with leaders reporting directly to her. She made it clear this would mean fewer people.
“We’ll be saying goodbye to some very talented and hard-working colleagues,” Fraser wrote when she announced the moves in September.
The first layoffs began in November, affecting senior managers. In January the bank told analysts it plans to eliminate 20,000 positions by 2026.
Fraser is trying to focus the company on serving big, multinational corporations, shed what isn’t profitable, and operate more efficiently.
Citi has also pulled back from consumer banking in various parts of the world, having sold off nine of those businesses with plans to exit a total of 14 across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Mexico.
It is also getting out of its US municipal bond business, dismantling yet another part of an empire amassed in the 1990s when Citigroup and its CEO Sandy Weill billed the bank as a “financial supermarket” that could offer any and all services needed by consumers, businesses, and governments.
Citigroup reported a net loss of $1.8 billion in the fourth quarter resulting from an FDIC assessment of $1.7 billion and other charges and reserves.
Fraser called the results “very disappointing” but said “we made substantial progress simplifying Citi and executing our strategy in 2023.”
This year, she added, would be a “turning point.”
David Hollerith is a senior reporter for Yahoo Finance covering banking, crypto, and other areas in finance.
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