Dive Brief:
- Morgan Stanley paid CEO Ted Pick $45 million for 2025, the bank disclosed Wednesday in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
- The total makes Pick the second-highest-paid chief executive among the six largest U.S.-based global systemically important banks – behind Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon, who received $47 million for 2025 but ahead of JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon ($43 million).
- The pay package gives Pick a 32.4% raise over the $34 million he received in 2024 – the steepest year-over-year increase among his peers.
Dive Insight:
Morgan Stanley’s CEO pay disclosure lends credence to the argument that $40 million in annual compensation is the new measuring stick for bank CEOs. Four of the U.S.’s six G-SIBs have announced CEO pay for 2025 in recent weeks, and all have given their CEOs $40 million or more.
Wells Fargo disclosed last month that it is giving CEO Charlie Scharf $40 million for his work in 2025. And a big U.S. bank that’s outside the “global systemically important” label – Capital One – announced last week that its chief executive, Richard Fairbank, will also receive $40 million for last year.
“Boards may be feeling pressure to offer competitive pay packages,” Shaun Bisman, a partner at the consulting firm Compensation Advisory Partners, told American Banker of the uptick in compensation levels.
Two of Morgan Stanley’s peers – Bank of America and Citi – have yet to disclose CEO pay for 2025, but each is expected to do so by March. BofA CEO Brian Moynihan received $35 million for 2024. Citi’s Jane Fraser saw $34.5 million.
In an indication that the market may be making $40 million a generational norm, Pick’s predecessor, longtime Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman, never received $40 million. Gorman left the CEO role at the end of 2023 as the top-paid chief executive among the top six U.S. banks – with $37 million.
Pick’s $45 million payday for 2025 even outclasses his compensation from 2023 – which included a one-time $20 million award Morgan Stanley gave to each of its three finalists in the CEO race.
Morgan Stanley does not delineate, in Wednesday’s filing, how much of the $45 million accounts for Pick’s annual salary and how much is bonus pay. But 75% of that bonus is deferred over three years, and all of the deferred portion stems from performance-vested equity awards, the bank noted.
Morgan Stanley credited Pick for an “outstanding performance” in 2025 that included “consistent execution of the Firm’s well-defined strategy of raising, managing and allocating capital.”
The bank reported a record $70.6 billion in revenue for the year, a 14% increase from 2024, it said. Morgan Stanley’s pretax profit also rose 25% year over year, to $22 billion, the bank said.
Morgan Stanley punctuated 2025 with an acquisition of private-shares platform EquityZen for an undisclosed sum. The transaction closed in January.
The bank also reported a return on tangible common equity of 21.6% in 2025, along with a common equity tier 1 capital ratio of 15%, shareholder returns of 45% and an increase in stock value of 41%.
Morgan Stanley also successfully argued for a lower stress capital buffer from the Federal Reserve last year.
Pick’s 32.4% raise surpasses that of peers who have seen their 2025 pay disclosed thus far this year. Scharf, at Wells Fargo, received a 28.2% bump from $31.2 million in 2024 to $40 million last year. Solomon’s $47 million represents a 20.5% increase from 2024. And Dimon’s $43 million pay package is a 10.3% increase year over year.
Fairbank’s $40 million payout for 2025 is a roughly 19% jump from 2024.
