Goldman Sachs slashes compensation for its chairman, Lloyd Blankfein, by 35% to $12.4M

US investment bank Goldman Sachs slashed compensation for Lloyd Blankfein, its chairman and chief executive, by 35 percent to about $12.4 million last year as the US investment bank's profits and shares fell, according to Bloomberg.

A regulatory filing in New York on Friday showed Blankfein's total package for 2011 included a $2 million salary, a $3 million cash bonus, about $7 million in restricted shares and $449,600 in other benefits, the Financial Times reported.

Blankfein, who has led the bank since 2006, received compensation of $19 million in 2010, according to the newspaper.

“Throughout 2011, our firm’s performance was challenged by instability in the euro zone, depressed client activity and regulatory uncertainty,” Blankfein said in a note to shareholders included in the regulatory filing, according to the New York Times.

While the compensation package marked an increase from the less than $10 million Blankfein pocketed in 2009 and 2008 during the global financial crisis, it was well below the record-setting $67.9 million he collected in 2007.

Goldman Sachs has been cutting expenses as it grapples with new regulations that are expected to hurt its traditional money-making business, the Financial Times reported.

In 2011 the bank earned $4.4 billion, down 47 percent from the previous year, as its return on equity, an important measure of performance, fell to 3.7 percent, from 32.7 percent in 2007, the New York Times reported.

Blankfein's compensation haircut was in line with the collective drop for other executives at the bank.