BlackRock CEO Laurence Fink Earned $27.95 Million Last Year

By Sarah Krouse 

The boss of the world's largest money manager made $27.95 million for his 2017 performance, an increase of 10%, after a banner year for the firm.

BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Laurence Fink was awarded a $10 million cash bonus and stock compensation of $17.05 million in 2017, according to a regulatory filing Friday. His base salary was $900,000, the same as the prior year.

Last year was a strong one both for new client cash at BlackRock and the firm's stock as markets rose. It pulled in a record net inflows of $367.3 billion, 67% of which went to its iShares exchange-traded fund business.

BlackRock shares climbed 35% in 2017 to $513.71, breaking the $500 mark for the first time.

The board cited the company's strong net inflows and financial performance under Mr. Fink's leadership, as well as his work on the firm's culture, technology and investment lineup.

Mr. Fink earned 195 times as much as the median BlackRock employee, the firm also disclosed Friday, based on the Securities and Exchange Commission's standards for disclosing executive pay.

U.S. companies are this year laying out for the first time their "pay ratios" -- the CEO's annual compensation divided by the median employee's pay. Disclosing that ratio, a requirement of the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, gives companies flexibility in how they identify the median worker.

Publicly traded money managers broadly bumped up pay for their chief executives last year. Many of those firms were helped during the period by rising markets that helped lift their assets under management.

"Assets under management have been strong," for publicly traded money managers, said Debra Brown, a member of Russell Reynolds Associates' investment-management practice. "Margins have been under pressure, but they haven't succumbed to all of those pressures yet," she added, referring to the growing popularity of low-cost market mimicking funds.

William Stromberg, CEO of T. Rowe Price Group Inc., for example, made $11.7 million in 2017 total compensation, up 28.5% from the prior year, according a regulatory filing by the firm earlier this year. Mr. Stromberg's total compensation for the year was 121 times that of the median employee.

The $1.02-trillion money manager's board cited T. Rowe's strong investment performance relative to peers under Mr. Stromberg's leadership, as well as his ability to balance revenue growth with reinvesting in the company.

T. Rowe shares rose 39.4% in 2017.

Mary Callahan Erdoes, JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s asset- and wealth-management chief, was paid a total $19.5 million in 2017 compensation, up 2.6% from 2016.

Invesco Ltd.'s board increased Chief Martin Flanagan's incentive compensation by 2.5% in 2017 based on the company's financial performance, the firm said in a March filing.

According to salary calculations that count compensation paid out during a given period, as required by the SEC, Mr. Flanagan made a total of $13.8 million in compensation last year, a 5.5% decline from the prior year. That total compensation was 141 times what the firm's median employee made.

Invesco, which manages $945.4 billion in assets, saw its shares rise 20.4% to $36.54 in 2017.

Write to Sarah Krouse at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 13, 2018 09:33 ET (13:33 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.