CEOs of big private equity firms rake in hundreds of millions annually (2024)

These executives make more money annually than the heads of Facebook, Google, and Apple, yet they aren’t nearly as recognizable.

They are the heads of this country’s largest private equity firms, and they take home on average 10 times the amount of money as the CEOs of banks, according to The New York Times.

The newspaper conducted an investigation which showed that the top executives at six publicly traded equity firms took home a whopping $211million on average last year.

Private equity firms are companies that take struggling companies that are not traded on the stock exchange and raise cash, which they then re-invest in those companies with the goal of making them profitable.

These firms would then try to get a handsome return on their investment by either offering the company to the public which can buy shares, selling the company, or recapitalization.

In 2012, Hostess, the company that makes Twinkies, went out of business after it was forced to declare bankruptcy.

The company sold off its various brands, with Twinkies and other Hostess cakes going to private equity firms Metropoulos & Co. and Apollo Global Management, which are known for fixing up ailing brands then selling them off for a profit.

In the summer of 2013, Twinkies came back with a vengeance, setting off a feeding frenzy that made the company a fortune.

In July, Hostess Brands went public, with the company being valued at $2.3billion.

Apollo and Metropoulus, which bought the company for $186million, received a return that was 13 times their original investment.

These are the kinds of deals that enable executives at private equity firms to reap nine-figures annually through a combination of salaries, dividends, stock options, bonuses, and carried interest, according to the Times.

The highest earning private equity executive was Stephen A. Schwarzman, the co-founder of Blackstone Group. According to the Times, Schwarzman took home $800million.

Apollo’s founder, Leon Black, raked in nearly $200,000million, while George Roberts of KKR earned slightly over $181million.

Another KKR executive, Henry R. Kravis, went home with $175.6million; David M. Rubenstein of Carlyle Group earned $102million; and William E. Conway, Jr., also of Carlyle, earned $96million.

Rounding out the top eight areAntony P. Ressler of Ares Management ($82,840,498) and Wesley R. Edens of Fortress Investment Group ($54,417,084).

Contrast those numbers with the earnings of Apple CEO Tim Cook, who earned a ‘paltry’ $10.3million in 2015, according to CNN.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, whose net worth is estimated at $50billion, agreed to take a symbolic salary of $1 per year in 2013.

The year before that, he earned $770,000 in combined salary and bonuses.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg earned $18.7million from both salary and bonuses in 2015, according to Salary.com.

Despite the resurrection of Hostess, the Times notes that the company has not restored its work force to pre-bankruptcy levels.

Under the ownership of the private equity firms, Hostess employs just 1,200 workers, compared to the 8,000 it had under the previous ownership.

While good times are here again for Hostess, the employees who werelaid off as a consequence of the company’s collapse have not shared in the spoils.

Private equity firms have managed to turn enormous profits by taking advantage of the shift to automation, which saves them millions on labor costs.

Executives raking in these kinds of sums of money is something that we can expect more of given that private equity controls some 7,500 companies that employ a total of 4.4million workers, according to the Times.

Observers say that while it may seem that the private equity firms are enriching themselves while others are getting poorer, the picture is a bit more complicated.

Pension funds that pay retirement benefits to teachers and firefighters also invest with private equity, giving employees in the public sector a vested interest in their success.

If these firms were to fail, it would mean a greater burden on taxpayers, advocates of private equity firms say.