Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Mario Gabelli of GAMCO Investors made a lot of money.

Gabelli the stock-picking guru garnered $85 million in 2013, and $215 million over the past three years, as USA Today reported and as MFWire noted in the blog I'm Sorry, They Paid Gabelli What?.

In case you were wondering how that salary compared to the chief executives of other publicly-traded asset firms, the Wall Street Journal confirms that this salary is indeed tops on Wall Street.

Citing survey data released Monday by the research firm SNL Financial, the Journal's Kirsten Grind writes that Gabelli's salary easily tops "the pay of financial titans like KKR & Co.’s Henry Kravis and George Roberts, BlackRock Inc.’s Larry Fink and even Goldman Sachs & Co.’s Lloyd Blankfein."

How is Gabelli able to command so many Benjamins? Grind cites SNL's explanation that he "receives an incentive-based management fee of 10% of the company’s aggregate annual pretax profits."

Of course, SNL's data can only take into account salaries at public-traded companies with publicly-accessible compensation figures.

Executives at privately held firms or firms that are subsidiaries of publicly-traded firms can and do make more. For example, the New York Times reported two years ago that Pimco's Bill Gross made something of the order of $200 million per year. 

Edited by: Tommy Fernandez


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