Slower profit growth leads to 12% pay cut<br> for Citizens CEO

PROVIDENCE – Citizens Financial Group Chairman and CEO Lawrence K. Fish’s total compensation last year fell 12 percent to $12.9 million, according to a report by parent company The Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc.
That included about $2 million in salary, a bonus of about $3.1 million and stock options and an additional incentive of about $7.4 million, according to Bloomberg News. Citizens earned record profits for the 14th year in a row in 2006, but actual year-over-year growth was only 1.7 percent, to $2.92 billion.
RBS’ total income, meanwhile, rose by 10 percent, to £28.002 billion, and group operating profit was up 14 percent, to £9.41 billion.
Fish remains the highest-paid executive at the Edinburgh-based bank.
This year, Bloomberg reported, RBS plans to seek investors’ approval to increase the options cap for executive directors to three times salary, from the current two and a half times; the award would be based on the bank’s earnings per share.