German megabank's executive committee makes itself ineligible for extra pay. Deustche Bank's brass -- including wealth-management head Pierre de Weck -- have decided not to take bonuses for their efforts in 2008. The Frankfurt-based bank's CEO Josef Ackerman, who will also forgo a bonus, told the German newspaper Bild that the gesture is a show of solidarity with more "deserving" colleagues.

Ackerman, de Weck and the rest of Deutsche Bank's 10-member executive committee voted late last week to without their 2008 bonuses in the face of a financial crisis that has resulted in the demise or hurry-up acquisition of several big firms including Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Wachovia and Fortis.

Big numbers

Compared to the lumps taken by some firms -- including Swiss private-banking giant UBS -- Deutsche Bank has so far only been dented by the financial crisis with a writedown on bad assets of about $9.7 billion.

UBS chairman Peter Kurer has also said he doesn't plan to take a bonus for 2008. That bank, whose writedowns have amounted to about $43 billion over the past three quarters, just got $5.2 billion from the Swiss government to help it free up funds for lending.

Ackerman got a $17-million bonus for his work in 2007.

. Former Merrill CEO Stan O'Neal, who was run out of the firm in the early stages of the present crisis last year, made $46.4 million in base, bonus and options for 2006. Goldman Sach 's CEO Lloyd Blankfein got a $67.9-million bonus last year; a record on Wall Street. Morgan Stanley 's CEO John Mack passed on a bonus for 2007, according to media reports. Altogether the boards of Bear Stearns (now part of JPMorgan Chase), Goldman Sachs, Lehman, Merrill and Morgan Stanley awarded their executives an all-time high of $39 billion in bonuses for 2007. -FWR

Purchase reproduction rights to this article.