Goldman Sachs jumps on payday report

NEW YORK, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- A Goldman Sachs spokesman called a report that Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein was to receive a $100 million bonus check "speculative nonsense."

After a report appeared in a British newspaper attributing its information to bankers attending the Davos World Economic Forum, spokesman Ed Canaday said, "The Goldman Sachs board of directors has not yet made its final decision on executive compensation so the $100 million figure is speculative nonsense."

Canaday was referring to The Times of London, which ran the story.

The incident is the second since December, when Canaday denied reports that Goldman Sachs top executives were likely to receive $10 million paychecks, ABC News reported Monday.

Blankfein famously received no bonus in 2008, when the bank churned up revenues of $22 billion. He was paid $70 million the year before that, among the highest incomes given a CEO on record.

The bank has tried to deflect anger over huge bonus checks by saying it would pay top executives only in restricted stock for 2009 and took unexpected step of capping its bonus pool after the third quarter for 2009, setting aside $16.2 billion for bonuses in the first three quarters of the year, but not a penny in the final quarter.