Some of Wall Street's rich get richer, crisis or no
Blackstone Group's stock is still under half its IPO value, but boss Stephen Schwarzman was America's highest-paid CEO last year, collecting $700 million in low-cost stock option gains
Private-investments manager Blackstone Group LP went public in 2007 and the share price did nothing but fall for the next year and a half. It's still flat at less than half investors paid. Shareholders have lost $20 billion.
But chief executive Stephen Schwarzman, an Abington native, is still making out like a proverbial bandit. He netted $700 million in low-cost stock option gains last year, making him the best-paid chief executive in America, the Corporate Library reports in a survey.
Oracle's Larry Ellison was second, with over $500 million, also mostly in stock options. "They were followed by seven oil company CEOs and Michael Jeffries, head of teen apparel retailer Abercrombie & Fitch Co.," Reuters reports here.
On the home front, Pimco Total Return Fund manager Bill Gross has conspicuously displayed the rewards of investing other peoples' money in bonds stead of higher-flying stuff by purchasing a $23 million bayfront home complex in Newport Beach, reports the Wall Street Journal here.