Treasury Freezes Compensation For Top AIG, Ally, GM Executives

While a majority of the American corporations that received “exceptional” bailout assistance form the Troubled Asset Relief Program, there are still three businesses — AIG, Ally Financial (you may know it by its pre-bust name of GMAC), and General Motors — remaining. Today, Treasury Dept. announced that the Acting Special Master for TARP Executive Compensation has determined that the top executives at this trio of companies will not get a pay raise in 2012.

While salaries will generally remain in the $500,000 or less area, around 83% of executive pay in 2012 will be in the form of company stock, thus how much these execs earn will ultimately be decided by how well their business performs.

The pay freeze impacts what is referred to as the “Top 25” executives at each company — the five senior executives followed by the next 20 executives with the highest 2011 compensation — but because a total of six executives have left the relevant companies since the beginning of 2012, the freeze only affects 69 suits.

Writes the Treasury about the changes to executive pay:

Overall the cash compensation for these 69 individuals decreased 18 percent and their total direct compensation decreased 10 percent from 2011 levels. For the individuals in the “top 25” in both 2011 and 2012, cash compensation increased 1 percent and total direct compensation decreased 2 percent. For the individuals new to the “top 25” group for 2012, cash compensation decreased 47 percent as compared to the cash they received for 2011, and total direct compensation decreased 30 percent as compared to 2011.

In terms of how these three companies have progressed toward exiting TARP, the Treasury reports that AIG has reduced its obligations to the U.S. government by more than 75%, while GM is about halfway there. Ally has the farthest to go, having only given back about one-third of TARP funds.

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