Business

A king of the ‘Rock’

Larry Fink is one lucky guy.

Fink will take home in excess of $20 million for his Wall Street work last year, when he successfully guided New York’s largest asset-management company, BlackRock.

“He’s right at the top. He’ll be north of $20 million — and, of course, BlackRock has done great,” compensation expert Alan Johnson told The Post.

Johnson says BlackRock, along with other huge asset managers, are part of the latest “seismic change” in 2013 salary and bonuses.

Dodd Frank and the Volcker Rule have reined in Wall Street’s largest banks ability to dole out giant cash bonuses.

Some 70 percent of the banks overall awards must be in stock options — which vest over time and can be clawed back.

BlackRock, an asset management firm without a government guaranteed backstop on deposits like the banks, has more leeway in its compensation awards.

Fink, 61, BlackRock’s chairman and CEO, is a Wall Street maven often tapped for advice by world leaders. He could certainly afford a new stretch limo to whisk him on the 50-mile journey from his New York office to his 26-acre North Salem country estate.

“The CEOs and the asset managers will make as much this year — $20 million-plus — if not double what big-bank CEOs make,” said Johnson.

BlackRock’s stock soared 55 percent during 2013 and is now bumping up against $300 a share, while paying out a quarterly dividend of $1.68, up from $1.50 the previous year. BlackRock manages a jaw-dropping $3.8 trillion in assets for its clients.

But overall, the take-away from this bonus season will be mixed.

The average income for a financial pro in New York City last year, according to New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, was $360,700. That’s down from the $401,500 high set in 2007.

Layoffs on the Street will reduce overall compensation, but may raise the average from year-ago levels, due to reduced head count.

Some consultants claim final Wall Street compensations for 2013 could be up by 5 to 10 percent. But that number is inflated by outsize payouts. Overall compensation, which often includes a combination of cash and stock, may have plunged as much as 20 percent from 2012 levels.

Some of the losers fell victim to Federal Reserve policies. “Folks I am talking to did not get a bonus in 2013, through no fault of their own,” recruiter Kyle Ramkissoon of IJC Partners told The Post.

Fixed-income pros were hammered as interest rates threw a monkey wrench into the mix. One veteran bond trader told The Post that hedge-fund player AQR Capital Management, with about $99 billion in assets under management in Greenwich, Conn., let go at least two top-notch trading execs in the past month. A spokesman for AQR said the fund would not comment on the matter.

The major banks put aside $91.44 billion for 2013 bonuses in the first nine months of 2013, according to Johnson. That’s down from $92.49 billion in the year-earlier period.

Goldman Sachs trimmed the amount aside for compensation by about 5 percent for the first nine months of 2013. On average, a Goldman employee would receive $319,775 by this measure.

Still, at blue-blooded firms like JPMorgan, secretaries and mailroom staffers may walk home with more than $165,000.

“The other surprise,” said Johnson, “is how long it has taken the industry to recover from the financial crisis. We are all seeing the light now at the end of the tunnel.”