Hard Times at Morgan Stanley

It’s not exactly sackcloth and ashes, but it’s something: John Mack, CEO of federal-bailout-fund recipient Morgan Stanley, is going to start repaying his company for personal trips on the corporate jet, according to new SEC filings reviewed by bailoutsleuth.com.  Things are tough all over. Mack only took home $1.24 million in compensation for 2008, the filings show. The firm lost $2.37 billion in the fourth quarter of last year, though it turned a yearly profit of $1.59 billion. Mack had a compensation package worth $1.6 million in 2007, though he also received stock awards valued (then) at $40 million. Morgan Stanley took $10 billion in federal TARP bailout funds last year, but has said it intends to repay it as soon as possible.  The bank’s executives have chafed under TARP’s executive compensation limits. “The TARP itself, the structure, is actually a very efficient and economically advantageous structure,” Morgan CFO Colm Kelleher ($7.4 million in 2008, down from $21 million in 2007) said this week. “It’s the stuff that comes with it which is the problem, right?”