Macquarie banker who earned more than Jamie Dimon steps down

Macquarie Group Ltd.’s powerhouse commodities head Nick O’Kane, who famously earned more than Wall Street chiefs such as JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon and Citigroup Inc.’s Jane Fraser, will step down later this month.

The 28-year veteran of the firm will resign as head of commodities and global markets and from the executive committee on Feb. 27, to “pursue opportunities outside Macquarie,” the bank said in a statement Tuesday.

Simon Wright, currently global head of the commodities and global markets financial markets division, will replace him and will join the executive committee from April 1. Wright has been with Macquarie for 35 years.

The leadership shuffle came as Macquarie said its profit for the nine months ended Dec. 31 was “substantially down” on the previous year.

Macquarie’s shares fell as much as 4.3% in early Sydney trading.

O’Kane’s division saw earnings fall, primarily due to exceptionally strong results in the previous period, the bank said.

For more detail from the earnings update, click here

It was those results that drove the 59% pay boost O’Kane received in the year through March 2023. His renumeration for the period was A$57.6 million ($37.6 million), according to Macquarie’s annual report released last May. In contrast, Chief Executive Officer Shemara Wikramanayake received A$32.8 million.

O’Kane’s pay also topped that of the biggest US bank bosses. Citigroup awarded Fraser $24.5 million for 2022, while JPMorgan kept Dimon’s total compensation at $34.5 million for that year.

At the time, Macquarie Chairman Glenn Stevens defended O’Kane’s salary, noting the bank is competing for talent in a global marketplace.

“This is an exceptional year so it’s not a surprise that there are some exceptional numbers,” Stevens said.

The Sydney-based bank entered the US natural gas market in 2005 with the acquisition of Cook Inlet Energy Supply, and in 2009 acquired Constellation Energy’s downstream natural gas trading platform. “Then O’Kane built a matrix of leases over gas and energy transmission networks, making Macquarie the most powerful player in the US market,” according to The Millionaire’s Factory, a history of Macquarie by Chris Wright and Joyce Moullakis, released last year.