Irish banker second-highest paid executive at Morgan Stanley

The Irish-born head of Morgan Stanley's investment banking division Colm Kelleher received a pay package of $8.6 million (€6.7 million) for 2012, according to new regulatory filings by the US bank.

The 2012 remuneration package, though down 7 per cent on the previous year as the fixed-income trading unit lost market share during the year, made Kelleher jointly with two others the second-highest paid executive after chief executive James Gorman. Mr Kelleher was paid $5.25 million for 2012, including a basic salary of $776,661, and was awarded a further $2.75 million under a long-term incentive plan.

Based on a pay format followed by US regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr Kelleher was paid $8.275 million, including $4.2 million worth of stock options, for 2012, down from $13.8 million in 2011 and $13.4 million the previous year. His bonus for 2012 fell to $2.4 million from $4.2 million.

Mr Kelleher (55), who saw off rival Paul Taubman to head up Morgan Stanley's investment bank last year, reached goals of reducing risk-bearing assets in fixed-income trading a year ahead of schedule.

Previously head of the global capital markets division and later chief financial officer, Mr Kelleher is credited with being part of the team that saved Morgan Stanley during the global financial crisis.

His duties as co-president of the institutional securities division, a unit he ran with Mr Taubman, were expanded in a management reshuffle in early 2011 and he was relocated from New York to London.

Originally from Bandon in Co Cork, Mr Kelleher spent a large part of his adolescent life in Warrington, England. He has worked for Morgan Stanley since 1989. His brother Declan, the current Irish Ambassador to China, was named in January as Ireland's new permanent representative to the European Union.