First Republic Bank made its name catering to wealthy clients across California and New York, reeling in many with unusually sweet mortgages that eventually doomed the firm, Bloomberg News reported. The system made its employees rich, too. The San Francisco-based bank — which regulators seized and sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co. early this month — was paying dozens of employees more than $10 million apiece annually in the heyday before its collapse, according to people with knowledge of the situation. Some racked up incentives for arranging home loans, amassing deposits and growing wealth-management portfolios. For at least one unnamed banker who wasn’t a top executive, the tally exceeded $35 million last year, the people said. That surpassed even what First Republic’s new boss, JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, was awarded for his 17th year running the nation’s largest bank. Though the bank was widely known for offering generous rewards to staff, some potential rescuers were surprised by the compensation figures on display when the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. granted access to the bank’s data room days before the agency’s emergency intervention on May 1. First Republic’s failure left the agency’s main insurance fund facing a multibillion-dollar hit. That shortfall will eventually be plugged by a special fee imposed on the banking industry. The company’s incentive system helped drive up compensation for employees to an average of $310,000 apiece last year, according to regulatory filings.
