Two from the Australian Financial Review, both February 13:
Macquarie’s $58m man hands reins to trading veteran
Macquarie Group’s Nicholas O’Kane has resigned as the head of the bank’s commodities and global markets group, less than a year on from raking in one of the largest pay cheques seen at an ASX-listed financial services group.
Mr O’Kane’s earnings, $171 million including profit share since he joined the executive committee in 2017, made him the highest-paid Macquarie executive, and last year, his mammoth pay cheque topped that of Wall Street chief executives such as Citi’s Jane Fraser and JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon.
He is the biggest known Macquarie earner since former CEO Allan Moss appeared on the 2014 Financial Review Rich List with an estimated $260 million fortune at the time.
Since taking the reins of CGM from Andrew Downe, Mr O’Kane’s pay spiked to $20.5 million in 2019 from $10.7 million a year earlier. That was also the first year he eclipsed chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake, who logged $17 million in total compensation in 2019, Macquarie’s annual reports showed.
His total pay took a slight dip in 2020 to $19.5 million, but Mr O’Kane still topped Ms Wikramanayake’s $18.1 million. Since then, however, his remuneration skyrocketed to $26 million in 2021, $36.2 million in 2022 and $57.6 million last year as trading desks feasted on unforeseen weather patterns, a global pandemic, dislocated energy markets, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and subsequent hedging to clients.
Jonathan Mott, bank analyst at Barrenjoey, said O’Kane’s departure was “a surprise”, but expected no change to Macquarie’s commodities and global markets group (CGM). The division has morphed into the group’s biggest profit generator, and its performances accounted for almost half of Macquarie’s group profits....
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And an hour earlier:
Macquarie loses its great problem solver
Nick O’Kane’s pay packet always grabbed the headlines, but his real legacy is to build one of Macquarie’s most important profit engines.
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