I'm blessed on pay, NYSE chief boasts

MEMBERS of the New York Stock Exchange have raised the pressure on chairman Richard Grasso to resign, with one accusing him of negotiating his controversial $140m (£88m) pay package by 'fraud and deception'.

George Morris, an Exchange member since 1985, made the accusation in a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission chairman William Donaldson. He said the markets watchdog should invalidate Grasso's pay contract.

The letter coincided with the first public release of details of Grasso's contracts - documents sent to the SEC as part of its probe into his pay.

In those it emerged that Grasso's remuneration included three separate-bonus plans which helped him achieve a tenfold rise in pay in just eight years.

Morris wrote that Grasso was 'besmirching the good name of the New York Stock Exchange and calling into question of fairness and the grasp of the regulatory process in the United States as it is viewed by the world at large'.

Morris is the second Exchange member to criticise Grasso publicly in a letter and to call on the SEC to have him removed

James Rutledge, an NYSE member for 30 years, said in a five-page letter to Donaldson earlier this week that Grasso should step down and the board should be changed. Morris was also highly critical of the Exchange's board and H Carl McCall, chairman of its compensation committee.

Morris was not placated by Grasso's decision this week to waive an additional and previously undisclosed $48m due to him. Grasso gave up that cash in an attempt to silence his critics.

Morris and Rutledge will find an appreciative audience in Donaldson. He was forced out as Grasso's predecessor at the NYSE and it was his demand for details on Grasso's remuneration that uncovered the additional pay.

However Grasso and the board apparently remain unmoved by the growing furore. Asked if he was under pressure to step down, Grasso replied bluntly: 'No. Would I voluntarily, after having just committed four more years of my life to the institution, step down? The answer is clearly not.'

He said that when he received his pay packet, 'I say, ''I am blessed, thank you''.'

Grasso was on a one-year bonus plan, a three-year bonus plan and a capital accumulation bonus plan. Grasso chooses members of the NYSE's committees, including the remuneration committee. His appointments are normally rubber-stamped by the board.

Grasso's pay has caused a stir in America and on Wall Street where huge remuneration does not normally attract much attention.