HMT Host Marriott Cp

By Patrick Thomas 

This article is being republished as part of our daily reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S. print edition of The Wall Street Journal (April 17, 2019).

The best place to make money in the world of finance and investment may not be at a bank but in real estate.

Real-estate investment trusts had some of the highest median worker pay among financial, real-estate and insurance companies in 2018, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of annual pay disclosures by hundreds of big U.S. companies. Property companies such as Host Hotels & Resorts Inc. and HCP Inc. paid their median employees more than some of the largest banks did.

Host Hotels & Resorts, the lodging REIT formed through deals including a spinoff over 20 years ago from what was Marriott Corp., had median worker pay of $183,956, the highest of any company in the sectors. The company has about 180 employees, all of whom work in the U.S., according to its latest proxy filing. Host Hotels & Resorts didn't respond to requests for comment. REITs often contract out lower-wage operations, leaving higher-paid professionals on their own payrolls.

HCP, a health-care REIT with about 200 employees, posted the third-highest median pay of $156,921. The exchange operator Cboe Global Markets Inc. had the second-highest median worker pay, at $159,496.

HCP didn't respond to requests for comment. A Cboe spokeswoman said the company's compensation plan takes into account expertise and tenure.

Morgan Stanley led big banks with median worker pay of $142,604, followed closely by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. at $136,513. But banks with more retail branches including tellers and other lower-wage workers were more likely to report median pay around $65,000. JPMorgan Chase & Co., the largest bank in the U.S., paid a median of $78,923.

Of the six largest U.S. banks, Citigroup Inc. had the lowest median pay figure at $49,766, about $10,000 less than the Midwest regional bank U.S. Bancorp. Wells Fargo & Co. posted median pay of $65,191.

Slightly over a third of Citigroup's more than 200,000 employees work in North America, according to its latest proxy statement. A spokesman for Citigroup declined to comment beyond the filing.

The financial data company FactSet Research Systems Inc. had the lowest median pay of $15,331 among the sectors. A company spokeswoman said most of FactSet's employees are based outside the U.S. She said the employee with the median pay was located in the company's Hyderabad, India, office, where 34% of its 9,571 employees are based.

The companies with the lowest median worker pay reported by S&P 500 companies in the financial, real-estate and insurance sectors were S&P Global Inc., at $26,738, and the real-estate and self-storage company Public Storage, at $24,909. A spokesman for S&P Global, the financial-information firm, said that 75% of its workforce is outside the U.S. and that its median employee provides junior professional services in the Asia-Pacific region. Of Public Storage's nearly 5,400 employees, 83% work at its self-storage facilities and are paid on an hourly basis, according to its latest proxy filing.

Most publicly traded firms are disclosing their median employee pay for a second straight year, along with compensation for top executives. Firms are asked to include part-time and temporary workers, but not contractors, and have the option of giving annual pay for some midyear hires. Companies may exclude up to 5% of their global workforce, but only non-U.S. workers, and may use sampling techniques to identify the median employee.

The Journal analysis, which includes more than 1,300 companies, combined the financial, real-estate and insurance sectors as defined by S&P Global. Those sectors include industry groups encompassing banks, REITs, insurance, capital markets and consumer finance.

Check out this interactive link for the full ranking of companies or to search for a specific company or industry.

Write to Patrick Thomas at Patrick.Thomas@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 17, 2019 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)

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