NEW YORK, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- Wall Street heavyweight Goldman Sachs said Thursday it would change its bonus pay structure to reflect some of the nation's frustration with financial firms.
The firm said members of its executive committee, an echelon of 30 top managers, would have bonuses paid out in restricted stock that cannot be redeemed for five years, The New York Times reported Thursday.
With the time cushion, Goldman said it would retract pay for executives that made "materially improper risk analysis" or failed to alert the firm of perceived risks, MarketWatch reported.
Goldman said it would put its pay practices up for a non-binding shareholder vote.
The policy "accurately reflects the firm's performance and (encourages) behavior that is in the public's and our shareholders' best interest," the firm's chairman and chief executive officer, Lloyd Blankfein, said in a statement.
The financial crisis that led to a severe economic downturn, including lost jobs for millions of people, has turned a standard envy of rich bankers into seething discontent, especially in the light of billions of dollars of taxpayer bailouts.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said of the nation's large banks, "none of them would have survived a situation in which we had let that fire try to burn itself out."
